Cooking to Impress: Korean Fried Tofu with Coconut Sticky Rice
serves two
This is a dinner to impress your family, friends, and flatmates – it’s so delicious, vegan, and easy too! If you can’t invite people over yet, make it for them and drop it round. You could even have a virtual dinner party…
The gochujang is the star of this recipe, you should be able to find it in your local supermarket in the world food section (I get mine from Sainsbury’s), or you can try a local Asian supermarket instead! This Korean red hot pepper paste has a slight warmth and sweetness to it that really brings the barbeque sauce to life.
If you give this recipe a go, take a picture and tag @blcircadian and @abeforthhh because we’d LOVE to see your recreations.
Ingredients
For the Crispy Tofu:
110g Extra Firm Tofu
Half an inch of Fresh Ginger finely grated
25g Cornflour
2 tsp Sesame Oil (or substitute vegetable)
Salt and Pepper for seasoning
For the Coconut Rice:
150g Sushi Rice
125ml Coconut Milk
100ml Cold Water
1 generous pinch of Salt
For the Sauce:
3 Tbsp Dark Brown Soft Sugar
1 Tbsp Gochujang (Korean Chilli Paste)
1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1 Large Garlic Clove crushed (or more if you’re a garlic fiend like me)
Small piece of grated Ginger
1 tsp Sesame Oil
Optional: Sesame Seeds, Spring Onion, and Crunchy Veg (I like Sugar Snap Peas)
Method
Pre-heat your oven to 200 Degrees Celsius
Soak your sushi rice in a bowl of cold water for 20 mins.
Drain and cut your tofu into 1-inch pieces, then press for 20 minutes: lay the pieces between kitchen towel and place a heavy book on top (Kumar and Clarke is my saviour for all situations).
While the tofu is pressing, rinse the sushi rice in a fine mesh sieve under cold water for 30 seconds, then set aside to drain fully.
Add the drained rice to a saucepan with 100ml cold water, 125ml of coconut milk and a generous pinch of salt. Cover with a lid and bring almost to the boil over a high heat. Don’t let the water fully boil as this will make the rice stick to the pot!
Reduce the heat to low until very gently simmering and cook, with the lid on, for 10 minutes.
After the tofu pieces have pressed, toss them with the sesame oil and season with salt, black pepper and ginger.
Then coat them with the cornflour until completely covered. This is what makes your tofu become crispy!
Bake the cubes on a lined tray in the oven for roughly 20 minutes until they are perfectly crispy.
After the rice has been cooking for 10 minutes, remove the pot from the heat and keep covered for a further 10 minutes before serving.
While the rice is resting, make the sauce by popping all the sauce ingredients into a saucepan and heating through for around 3 minutes until syrupy- put aside and keep warm. The sauce will thicken up if it cools, just heat it up again before serving!
Once all the components are ready, toss the tofu into the sauce then serve with the coconut rice and veg. Don’t forget to garnish with the spring onion and sesame seeds if you want to be fancy…it makes the pictures look chefy.
Tips
If you don’t have sushi rice, then you can use other short grain rice instead. The ratio of rice to water should be 2:3. Try to leave the rice undisturbed for the whole cooking and resting process!
If you want to mix it up a bit, try getting a flavoured tofu such as the Tofoo Co Smoked one.
Put on a banging playlist and dance around the kitchen while you’re waiting. This is non-negotiable.
Secret: I didn’t actually have any weighing scales or even a lid to my saucepan when I made this recently (I’m in halls whilst on placement in Southend) so I had to make do with some guesswork and improvisation! Don’t be afraid to experiment with cooking, it adds to the fun of it.
Recipe inspired by a BBC Good Food - "Korean Fried Chicken"