Recipe: Fun With Fried Tofu
Category: Recipes Tags: Pescetarian, Tofu, Vegan, Vegetarian
I decided to test this recipe for fried tofu that I found on the Post Punk Kitchen website. I was scared to try this one; truth be told, my first go at frying tofu—maybe a year ago— was a disaster. Room temperature tofu dredged in eggy, tasteless batter, left in a pan till it stuck to the bottom. Needless to say I hadn’t tried it since. To be fair to all fried tofu lovers out there, I had no recipe, no real seasoning (maybe a little salt), and no concept of how to work with tofu. Thank goodness for do-overs.
One great thing about this recipe, aside from the fact that it’s quick and easy, is that it doesn’t call for egg; to mimic the fluff you get from using egg, substitute with miso.
The recipe calls for tofu that’s been frozen for 48 hours. I’m not sure that an open package of tofu that’s been sitting in an extra cold fridge counts, but that’s what I used. My fridge is pretty cold though— the day before I left some chickpeas soaking in there overnight and the water froze! Brrr!
I tweaked the original recipe a bit beyond not using frozen tofu. The original calls for cornstarch, which I don’t currently own, nor have I ever. I can’t say I know what it looks like—I assume yellow. Instead I used nutritional yeast. I also switched the suggested cayenne pepper out for Chili powder.
I’m sure I’ll have another go at this one, next time with properly frozen tofu and MAYBE cornstarch. I’m up for it. This stuff is yummy, and it filled me up quickly.
My rendition of “Miso Drrrrty Southern Fried Tofu”
Source: Original recipe found at www.theppk.com
Takes: 20 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 block of tofu defrosted / cut into triangles.
- About a cup of white flour
- Chili powder (according to taste)
- Garlic powder (according to taste)
- Sea Salt (according to taste)
- Ground pepper (according to taste)
- A teaspoon of nutritional yeast
- 1/4 cup cold water
- 1 cup warm water
- 1 tablespoon-full of miso
- Vegetable oil for frying
Directions
-
If you actually heeded the warning and froze your tofu, leave it sitting in warm water to thaw.
-
In a separate bowl, dissolve the miso in one cup of warm water. In a separate bowl or cup, combine cold water and nutritional yeast until the yeast dissolves. Combine this with the miso and water.
-
In yet another bowl, combine your chili powder, garlic powder, sea salt, pepper and flour.
-
Take a triangle of tofu and dip it into your seasoned flour mix first. Then, dip the triangle into the miso/yeast mix and then into the flour again. Make sure it’s evenly covered.
-
Set the battered triangle aside and prepare the rest of the tofu the same way. Use this prep time to get your oil nice and hot. To make sure your oil is hot enough, throw a dash of dry flour into it. If the flour sizzles right away, you’re all set.
-
Fry your battered tofu until brown on all sides. It takes very little time to brown, so don’t just leave the tofu unmanned!
Now you’re done! Eat with sauce or solo. Yum!
