Crispy Tofu w/ Stir Fried Veg

served with Rice

Serves 3

Cooking Time ~20/30 minutes

This is a really good way to use up any Veg you have lying around - you can easily substitute the Carrots for Courgettes or an Aubergine, and you can swap the Asparagus for Sugar Snaps, Tenderstem Broccoli or anything green.

Ingredients:

400g Tofu

2 tbsp Toasted Sesame Oil

3x Carrots (peeled into strips)

Bunch of Asparagus (trimmed)

1x Garlic Clove (peeled and finely diced)

1x Small Chunk of Ginger (peeled and finely diced)

1x Red Chilli

3x Spring Onions (thinly sliced)

Coriander

Turmeric

Chilli Powder

300g Brown Rice (packet/uncooked)

For the Cooking Sauce:

1/2Cup Soy Sauce

1/4 Cup Rice Wine Vinegar

(white wine/apple cider vinegar also works)

1/4 Cup Veg Oil

1/4 Cup Water

2tbsp Runny Honey

2x Red Chillies

1x Chunk of Fresh Ginger

3x Garlic Cloves

Method:

Blitz all of the Cooking Sauce ingredients in a blender until smooth. Add more Honey if you like it sweeter or more Chillies if you like it spicier. Rice Wine Vinegar can be hard to find so you can substitute it for White Wine Vinegar, Apple Cider Vinegar or even Lime Juice.

Prepare your Veg. Chop your Garlic, Ginger and Chilli into a fine dice. Peel the Carrots and then continue using the peeler to get thin strips of Carrot. These should be like ribbons - it's a nice way to eat carrots, it requires very little cooking time and gives them an almost noodle-like quality.

Wash the Asparagus. A little handy Jamie Oliver tip for Asparagus if you have them whole:

1. If you take each end of the Asparagus and gently bend, the Asparagus spear will naturally snap in two, giving you the tender end that you want to keep and the tough end that you can discard (or keep, finely chop and stir through some pasta).

2. One you have your tender end, you'll see there are dark purple ferns down the stalk. I like to trim these with a small sharp knife or peeler - it looks nicer and should taste cleaner.

3. You now have a tender, trimmed Asparagus tip which will cook quicker and more evenly.

Remove your Tofu from the packaging and press thoroughly but gently with a paper towel. Leave it to stand for a couple of minutes and press again - we want to extract as much moisture as possible so that it crisps up. Cut the Tofu into bite-size chunks and press a third time to get the last of the moisture out. Season the Tofu with Turmeric and a pinch of Chilli Powder - this will give it a really nice colour and a bit of background heat. You can add a touch of flour/cornflour at this stage to help crisp up, but it's not essential.

Heat a large frying pan up with some oil and add the Tofu, along with about a quarter of the Cooking Sauce. Fry the Tofu until it's crisp and brown. The Cooking Sauce will give it a caramelisation and you want a bit of colour so keep moving it in the pan - this should take around 10 minutes. Once you're happy with the colour, take it off the heat and drain it on some paper towel.

Get the pan back back on the heat and add the Chilli, Garlic and Ginger. Fry off for a couple of minutes, then add the Asparagus with another quarter of the Cooking Sauce. Keep moving this around and fry until it's tender but still crunchy. Add the Carrots in with a little more of the Cooking Sauce and cook for a few minutes.

If you're using packet Rice, get that cooked. Once done, add to a bowl and stir through a little more of the Cooking Sauce.

Plate up! Add all the elements together and serve with some finely sliced Spring Onions and fresh Coriander.

Enjoy. If you fancy sharing your effort, then please tag @wellgoodgrub on Instagram.

#WellGoodGrub