okay so I made absolutely delicious Orange Tofu last week and have to tell y’all what I did
the photo keeps getting compressed to shit, so… pretend this is a better image, lmao
it’s tricky time-management wise, but holy shit does it taste so good. have a plan of attack first — then go go go!
Tofu Ingredients
- Extra Firm Tofu
- Soy Sauce
- Cornstarch
- Vegetable Oil
Sauce Ingredients
- 7 Oranges or Orangelikes
- 1/2 cup Brown Sugar
- 2 tbsp Vinegar (White or Rice Wine)
- 2 tbsp Soy Sauce
- 1/2 tsp Minced Garlic
- 1/2 tsp Chili Flakes
- 1 tbsp Cornstarch
Rice Ingredients
Bonus Ingredients
- Vegetable of Choice
- (Broccoli + Cauliflower work great!)
Make the Tofu
1. Press the tofu to dry it out! This makes it extra crispy.
My quick-and-sloppy method: Place paper towel on a large plate. Cut the tofu in
depthwise thirds, as if you broke a book into three parts. Place these on the paper towel, open-faced gaze to heaven. Place a matching plate on top.
Gently press, then put a heavy bowl or something else on top. Give it a solid half-hour to an hour — replace the paper towel a time or two in between if you want to be picky. Or… don’t be a broke-ass bit like me and buy a tofu press!
2. When you’re almost ready for full prep, preheat the oven to 425°.
3. Cut your now-drier tofu into roughly equal chunks. Aim for roughly finger-third, maybe an inch by half-inch? Consistency helps, but who has the time?
4. Lightly douse with soy sauce. You could also marinate, but I was mostly focused on the sauce!
5. Coat lightly with cornstarch. I’m a little freak so I was meticulous and rubbed down each face of each chunk. You want a thin layer, no bunched-up starch spots. You could hardly tell it was there on mine, for better or worse.
6. Evenly disperse across a piece of parchment paper on a sheetpan, then liberally drizzle the vegetable oil. Make sure you can flip them without too much trouble!
7. Cook in the oven at 425° — roughly ten minutes each side. Make sure they’re fairly crispy on the bottom pre-flip.
8. If your timing is right, you will have just wrapped up the tasty tasty sauce. We’ll need it for the last step!
9. Dump the crispy tofu into a frying pan and coat with orange sauce. Fry for maybe another ten minutes at medium-to-low-medium heat, taking extra care not to burn them!
Make the Rice
I have a rice cooker so I’m kind of a cheat in this department. These steps are based on having a rice cooker. If you don’t have one, be normal about rice.
1. Scoop up three “cups” of rice — as in the cup that came with the rice cooker — and rinse that shit off thoroughly with a fine-mesh strainer. (Botulism is real!)
2. Add the designated amount of water according to your rice cooker. This is about 2+
real cups for me.
3. Lightly salt the water and pour in a good bloop of sesame oil. It makes it taste even better!
4. Start cooking once you have about :30 to :45 left in your campaign — for me, this was the same time I got the tofu in the oven.
Make the Sauce
This is where it gets delicious and wild.
1. Rinse off your oranges, because we’re about to get fucking silly.
Note: You don’t have to use just oranges! Technically, I think four of my seven oranges were either tangerines or mandarins. Maybe that helped make it so good… either way, experiment with citrus!
Another Note: Okay, yeah, you can technically make this with orange juice. But that fucking blows. Eviscerate the citrus yourself for maximum flavor — and to remind yourself that you’re just a fucking animal, that you would rend whatever kept you fed in the wild, that gore is life and no suburb or rental can sterilize that hunger from your soul.
2. Return of the fine-mesh strainer! Slice each orange in half and squeeze like your life depends on it. Make sure you go through the strainer to catch all seeds and detritus, and have a measuring cup below to catch the all-drenching fruit of your labor.
3. Once you have
1 cup total of your hard-won gold, mix the following into a small saucepan: the orange juice, the brown sugar, the vinegar, the soy sauce, the garlic, and the chili flakes. NOT the cornstarch — not yet!
4. Cook this mixture on medium heat for roughly 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Boil some water with a kettle or electric kettle. Or a pot! I’m not the fucking boss of you. You’re an animal, remember? You can hunt and kill the boiling water for all I care.
6. Stir your cornstarch with a roughly equal amount of freshly-butchered boiling water. Mix into a fine wet paste, then add to the saucepan.
7. Cook it all together for another fivish minutes. Stir plenty, don’t let it burn! Be mindful of your heat — err lower and longer if needed.
Voila! You should now have an intoxicatingly flavorful little pot-o’-somethin’. Savory, sweet, tart, spicy… perfectly and deliciously balanced.
Now… let’s put it on
everything.
Make the Vegetables
The steps here depend on what vegetables you picked! I recommend pan-frying to make nice and toasty first.
Then, once the sauce is ready, add sauce to your veggies to get a nice glaze / integration.
Pan-fry the mixture on low-medium heat, taking care not to burn. Give this maybe 10 minutes or so — it tastes better if the sauce is meaningfully cooked with the components.
If you’re a freak like me, you can totally use the same pan for the veggie-to-sauce and tofu-to-sauce integrations.
Get Your Shit Together
Now serve that shit up! I like to use fairly deep bowls and layer.
Rice first, a hearty serving. Drizzle a little sauce directly into the rice.
Then add tofu and veggies on top. Food enjoyers can stir upon receipt for tasty tasty turbulence.
You Did It
Did you do it? I hope so! It’s fucking tasty!
Let me know if you give this a try and how it turns out for you!
Cheers!