Salt and Pepper Tofu
Ste Cook
Difficulty: Easy
Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking: 15 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 block firm tofu, cut into 1.5cm cubes
- 4 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
- 2 tbsp oil, for shallow frying
- 1 onion chopped roughly
- 3 spring onions, chopped into small rings
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- Bird’s eye chillis, chopped into rings (number according to taste
- 1 red bell pepper, deseeded, destalked, chopped into 1cm square pieces
- 1 tsp salt
- 0.5tsp ground pepper
- 1tsp Chinese five-spice powder
Method
- Heat the oil in a frying pan or wok to a medium-high heat.
- While the oil heats up, toss the tofu cubes in the cornflour.
- Fry the tofu cubes, turning them every couple of minutes to get them crispy all over (~10 min)
- Remove the cubes from the pan with a slotted spoon or similar, and put them on some kitchen towel on a plate to remove excess oil.
- Turn the heat up to high, and add the onion to the remaining oil. Stir them around, tossing the pan if you can. You’re aiming to get them a little browned on the edges and somewhat softened: this should only take a minute or two.
- Add the garlic, bell pepper, and chillis, and continue mixing over high heat until they also soften and brown on the edges a bit: another minute or so.
- Add the spring onions and tofu, and continue mixing everything together for another minute.
- Sprinkle the salt, white pepper and five spice over the mixture, and mix to coat well.
- Serve with rice, noodles, whatever you like.
Tips
All ingredients available in most supermarkets. Coat the tofu with cornflour in batches if your pan is too small to fit all the cubes at once. If the cubes spend too long in the cornflour, you’ll end up with Oobleck.