Sticky Sweet and Sour Tofu

Takes 30 minutes. Serves 2 people.

This recipe came from craving Chinese food and being nowhere near a gluten free Chinese restaurant. I use Tamari sauce/gluten free soy sauce, which I find slightly more palatable and flavoursome than regular soy sauce. Or am I just saying that because I can't have regular soy sauce anymore... no I'm not, it really taste better.

Please note, this dish can also be made with chicken, I'm just currently going through a vegetarian phase.

On an easiness scale, I would rate this recipe a 3/10. The only difficulty is balancing the flavours of the sticky sauce, while I recommend sticking with the ingredients I listed below, sometimes it's not that easy to find rice wine vinegar or rice mirin, don't worry I get. I'm notorious for ignoring pretentious ingredients - we don't always have Persian Sargol Saffron in our cupboard, Nigella... In that case just go without the ingredients you can't find and make sure you taste along the way. If you are intent on sticking to the recipe, just check out your local asian supermarket, or Japanese specialty store.

I normally serve this with whatever cheap beans I can find - but I'd say it goes best with mange tout or sugar snap peas. Served with some sticky sushi rice and you are good to go!

Quick tip on cooking sushi rice: Rinse it and let it sit in cold water for 20-30 mins. It might seem tempting to chuck it in the pan straight away but I can promise you that it won't come out light and fluffy. Rinsing it gets rid of the starchiness, make sure you wash that rice until the water is clear! Letting it sit in cold water before you cook it will make sure the rice absorbs the water evenly through the grain.

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Right let's crack into it....

Ingredients

• 250 grams of firm tofu

• 1/3 cup of cornflour

• 1 red pepper

• 1 red onion

• 1 tsp salt

• Sesame seeds

For the sauce

• 1/3 cup gluten free soy sauce or Tamara

• 1 Tbsp cornflour

• 2 garlic cloves (diced)

• 1 tsp rice mirin

• 1 tsp rice wine vinegar

• 3 Tbsp of honey

• 1 tsp of chilli flakes (more if you like the spice)

Method

1. Chop the red pepper and red onion into small chunks.

2. Drain and rinse the tofu. Pat dry with kitchen towel and then cut into bite sized pieces.

3. Put the tofu in a bowl with the 1/3 cup of cornflour and a teaspoon of salt. Mix gently until tofu is fully coated.

4. Heat up a pan with 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Add the coated tofu to the pan and pan fry on a medium high heat until all sides are golden brown.

5. While the tofu is frying, in a bowl mix together the soy sauce and cornflour until combined.

6. Add the garlic cloves, mirin, rice wine vinegar, honey, and chilli flakes into the sauce and stir. Set aside and continue cooking the tofu.

7. Once the tofu has browned, set aside on a plate and put the red onion into the pan. Cook for 1 minute.

8. Add the red pepper into the pan with the red onion and cook for 3 minutes.

9. Set red onion and red pepper aside with the tofu and return stove to element.

10. Give your sauce a quick stir to make sure all the ingredients are well mixed. The honey has a tendency to sit in the bottom of the bowl. Pour sauce into hot pan and stir until it starts to thicken. Keep your eye on it, you don't want the sugars in the honey to start burning.

11. Once the sauce is thickening, return the tofu, red pepper and red onion to the pan and mix until everything is well coated.

12. Pan fry for 2 minutes until the sauce slightly darkens. Remove from pan and serve immediately with rice and steamed beans. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and dig in!

There you have it folks, let me know if you get round to making this and what you think of it. Cheers for reading!