Khushbu LalwaniThis recipe was a big surprise to me as I love Chinese food but cooking it to perfection usually escapes me.
Don’t get me wrong stir fry dishes are great but I am a little bored, add a different ingredient and I would probably be fine but on the whole I’m on a hunt for something more tantalising. This recipe reminds me of the kind of Indo-Chinese restaurants you can find in India. It’s is a spicy one, containing both chillies and pepper, although you can moderate the spice level by adding less if you like.
Ingredients to feed four:
- 800 g firm tofu
- Vegetable oil for frying
- Corn flour to dust the tofu
- 150 g butter
- 12 small shallots (350g) thinly sliced
- 8 fresh red chillies thinly sliced
- 12 garlic cloves crushes
- 3 tbsp. chopped fresh root ginger
- 3 tbsp. sweet soy sauce
- 3 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 4 tbsp. dark soy sauce
- 2 tbsp. caster sugar
- 5 tbsp. coarsely crushed back peppercorns
- 16 small and thin spring onions cut into 3 cm segments
Let’s make the tofu first. Pour enough oil into a large frying pan for a 5mm depth. Cut the tofu into large chunks and toss them and shake off the excess. Add the tofu to the hot oil. I had to fry the tofu pieces in batches to make sure they didn’t stick together. Fry and turn until golden brown. Transfer them onto kitchen paper to drain the oil.
In a different pan, or if using the same one remove the oil and sediment and put the butter inside until it starts to melt. Add the shallots, chillies, garlic and ginger and sauté on a medium heat for approximately 15 minutes and stir occasionally. Once it is all soft, add the soy sauces and sugar and stir. Then add the crushed black pepper.
Add the tofu to warm it up in the sauce for about a minute and stir in the spring onions. Serve with steamed rice and enjoy!
