I made this dish last night from a recipe my dad recommended to me from the cookbook that I am totally blanking on right now (I will revise this later). It is SO GOOD. The recipe creator (whose name I don't know at all -- I will revise this later as well) writes in his little forward that this is a take from another cook's recipe that he's molded into his own and now is "addicted" (his word). I suppose I've done that again in a very minor way and am sort of addicted (my word now) as well.
The only way I've really changed up this recipe is I only use half a head of broccoli, an entire package of tofu, one shallot, and no ginger. I hate ginger in fact. To me, ginger smells like soap. It's fresh, but not something that I'd like to eat. This is weird because I love ginger ale. Is it, though? Now that I think about it, it's probably not weird at all. Lastly, I made a bit of rice to go with it. The recipe doesn't say anything about pairing with rice, but I felt like I needed a little something else.
This amount of food ended up being enough for a dinner and leftovers for lunch the next day.
Ok, here are the ingredients:
- firm tofu
- black pepper
- cornstarch
- vegetable oil
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 shallot
- 1/2 red pepper
- 1/2 broccoli head
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 2 teaspoons water
First, open up the tofu and drain out all of the water. Next, wrap the tofu in paper towels for 30 minutes. Tofu kind of sucks because if you don't use all of it, you need to store it in water and replace the water every day it sits. I haven't actually done this before, I just ready about it, however it sounds like it sucks.
While the tofu is having the moisture sucked out of it, cook the rice. I cook 1/3 cup of rice with 2/3 cup of water. It's a pretty good measurement for one person.
After that has started, chop up the garlic, shallot, pepper, broccoli and place in bowl to the side.
Once the tofu has had its 30 minute blanket wrap time, take it out of the paper towels and chop into 1-2" pieces. Put the chopped pieces in a big mixing bowl, sprinkle the pieces with a lot of black pepper. Lots and lots. Next, coat every piece with the corn starch. Now, in a large pan, pour in the vegetable oil so that about half of the tofu pieces would be submerged (I don't have an exact measurement for this!!). Place the tofu in the pan and cook pieces so that they are evenly crispy-looking and light brown on both sides. After they look done, place them on a cooling rack placed above a plate to catch any oil that might fall from the tofu.
Now, pour out some of the oil, but save a little to cook the veggies! Pour the bowl the vegetables are in into the pan and cook for a bit, maybe 5 minutes. Next, pour in the soy sauce, sugar, and water and cook for another 5 minutes.
Once that is all done, your rice should be done and it is time to plate! Put the rice on first, then vegetables in the sauce, and then the tofu. That's it!
Very good, and good for two meals for one person!
