Nidhi's Kitchen: Sesame Garlic Tofu

Nidhi Arora
Dec 4, 2019
2 min read

Updated: Dec 9, 2019

I keep looking for vegetarian options and different ways to enjoy tofu.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Tofu 28 oz
Sesame oil 2 tbsp
Cornflour 2 tsp
Spring onions 5 to 6 (sliced with white and greens separated)
Garlic 2 flakes grated
Sesame seeds for garnish 1/2 tsp

For Sauce:

Chili garlic sauce 2 tsp (if you want to reduce the heat add 1 tsp)
Cornflour (optional) 1 tsp
Soy sauce (low sodium) 1/4 cup
Water 1/4 cup
Walden farm maple syrup 2 tbsp
Rice Vinegar 1/2 tsp

Preparations:

Pre-preps for tofu:

This recipe tastes best with crispy texture of tofu. To get the crispy effect tofu has to be dried from outside.
Tofu comes submerged in water, drain the water in the sink and wash and pat dry the tofu.
Then place it on a flat base with a slight angle (I did it in my sink only), sandwiched between kitchen towels and put some weight on the top of tofu. Make sure the weight in not so much that the tofu gets crushed, however just sufficient to squeeze the extra water from tofu. I used an iron skillet as the weight.
If possible leave it like this before you go to the office and let it stay for few hours. Or speed up the process by changing the kitchen towels frequently.
This will take at-least 30 minutes.
Cut the tofu in about 1 inch cubes. Add the cut tofu in a platter and sprinkle cornflour. Toss the cubes to evenly coat with cornflour.

Cooking instructions:

Take an iron skillet and heat it before adding oil. Once hot add oil, place the prepared tofu, do not overlap.
Do not turn till one side is completely done, brown all the edges. This will take around 15 minutes. (I had to do two rounds as all tofu could not fit in one round).
In a bowl add all the ingredients of sauce and whisk them together.
Once all sides of all tofu cubes are browned, add garlic in the skillet and saute for 30 seconds.
Then add all part white and half part greens of spring onion, saute for another 30 seconds. And pour the sauce on top.
Quickly stir and evenly quote all the tofu with the sauce. You need to cook till you get the shiny looking texture. That means the cornstarch is cooked completely. This will take 3-4 minutes.
Transfer them in a serving dish garnish with spring onion greens and sesame seeds.

Preparing Gravy:

In the same skillet add some water and some chili garlic sauce. Mix it well and take out all the sauce left behind in the skillet. This will make a thin gravy which I used it to drizzle on my plated sesame tofu and stir fried broccoli.

Tip:

Cornflour can take you out of ketosis, hence we do not recommend this in Phase 1. In case you want to make it for phase 1 use only 1 tsp in 4 servings so it does not affect the protocol. Though this would make the sauce less thick. To compensate and not get a lot of gravy in tofu do not add water, just add rest of the ingredients except water and cornstarch.

To make it a complete meal for my kids, I added some rice with a gravy drizzle.