General Tso's Tofu

I am not nor could I ever be a pure vegetarian, however my wife is, and because of this, I will try vegetarian dishes every now and again.  I admit some of them, with the right flavor combinations are acceptable substitutions.  This dish was one of them, the sauce has so much flavor, you barely miss the meat.

General Tso's Tofu

Ingredients:

• 1 brick of extra firm tofu
• Cornstarch for coating the tofu
• canola or vegetable oil
• 1 Tbsp of Sesame seed oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
• 1-2 Tbsp of fresh ginger finely chopped

Sauce Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 3 Tbsp hoisin sauce
• 3 Tbsp rice vinegar
• 3 Tbsp ketchup
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• Red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup of water

First thing you need to do, is to drain the tofu.  I put it on a couple paper towels with some on top then put a pan on top to squeeze out some of the liquid, be careful not to put too much weight on it, you don't want it to crumble. I have seen this done with paper towels in a strainer hanging over a bowl, which might be the best way, since I had to change the paper towels because they had become soaked.  There is a lot more liquid in there than you might think.

While you are waiting for the tofu to drain, mix all the sauce ingredients in a bowl and set aside.  You can decide how much spice you want by how much red peppers you put in it. I like it pretty spicy so I added a good bit.

Once you have your sauce mixed up, you can begin to prepare your tofu.

First get a pan warming up with a little layer of vegetable or canola oil.  I heated mine on medium heat.

You can cut it however you liked it, for this first try I made larger pieces, next time I think I'm going to do more smaller pieces, because the crispy fried edges made the dish for me.

Once you have it cut, cover it in an even dusting of cornstarch.

Now this goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway, be careful with this next step as you are going to have some obvious splash over.  Carefully place your tofu in your pan, and let them get a nice brown crispy coating, and turn them so you can get this on all sides.  I think you could do smaller flatter pieces and only have to turn them once, but for this first try I made sure to turn them and get them cooked on all sides.

Once you have your nice browned tofu, take it out of the pan and set it to the side, drain the grease and wipe out your pan and return it to the stove.  I'd lower the temp to about medium low at this point too.

Now add your sesame side oil to your pan along with your garlic, ginger, and onions.  Sauté them up so your onions are nice and tender, I even got mine a little browned.  Now you can add your sauce and get it warming up, bring it to a boil, shouldn't take very long in a larger pan.  Let it cook down a little bit, then you can add your tofu and try to make sure and coat every piece.

As you can see in the picture,  I served mine over steamed rice,  add a little extra sauce to the rice, and you get a nice meal.

My only thought to this, was it was a bit sweeter than I would have liked, I might try to cut back a bit on the brown sugar next time, but over all it made for a great dinner.

Hope you enjoy!