Hi guys,
Today I'm sharing my latest salad obsession with you. These little morsels of saucy, spicy
peanut tofu perfection are bursting with delicious savory flavour. I love them on salad as they
have a dense and chewy satisfying texture that contrasts nicely with a mix of tender
and crunchy veggies, but you can have them with rice or noodles, in a sandwich or wrap,
or wherever you like really. There are no rules!
Start with some pressed tofu. This packaged tofu is already pressed. If you can't get
this kind, you can press your own. Click here for the video on how I like to press tofu.
After you dry off the tofu, just cube it up to whatever size you like. I'm slicing this
block into four, keeping the whole block together, turning it on the side and slicing through
once, then placing it back on the board and slicing across three times to create fairly
even sized cubes.
Then put those aside and mix the marinade ingredients together.
First, we have a half cup of vegetable stock, some maple syrup (you can use any liquid sweetener
you like but I like maple best), some chili garlic sauce known as sambal oelek and a tablespoon
of peanut butter. If you can't get this sambal sauce, check the description box for other
things you can use instead.
Next, I'm putting about a half teaspoon's worth of ginger and a clove of garlic through
the garlic press.
You can mix this together with a blender which will only take a second or whisk the ingredients
together until it gets fairly smooth.
I actually had to heat this up in the microwave for 30 seconds as the peanut butter just wouldn't
emulsify but you may not need to do that depending on what kind of peanut butter you have.
Now, add your cubed tofu. This doesn't look like it's going to fit but just wait. I made
it fit.
Mix those cubes in and get them mostly submerged, this is close enough. Cover and marinate in
the fridge for a minimum of one hour and up to about 8 hours or overnight.
Meanwhile, get your blender or food processor and dump in a quarter cup of roasted peanuts.
These are unsalted but you can use whatever kind you like, even a seasoned variety to
give an extra kick.
Also add a couple tablespoons of rice flour. You can use cornstarch or another type of
flour if you like. It won't be exactly the same but close enough.
Then pulse that for a few seconds so the peanuts break down. I went for a fairly fine consistency
but you can also keep it a little chunky for extra texture.
Put that into a large bowl and when you're ready, drain the tofu and dump it into the
bowl, and mix to coat all the pieces in the rice flour and peanut mixture.
By the way, don't throw out the marinade! We're going to turn it into sauce in a bit.
Now, get a parchment lined baking sheet and pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit
which is 190 Celsius.
Spread the coated tofu out on the parchment. Try to separate the pieces so they don't stick
together.
Then bake in a preheated oven for 15 minutes.
In that time, take the leftover marinade and heat it up on the stove. I'm simmering this
over medium high heat to reduce the volume by half. It will only ten minutes or so, maybe
less as this is not very much liquid. Do be careful not to simmer away too much. Then
set it aside to cool.
After 15 minutes, roughly flip the tofu pieces over and put it back in the oven for another
15.
They should come out nice and golden with some crispy edges.
Pour over the reduced spicy, maple-y sweet peanut sauce over the tofu and toss to coat.
Taste and add salt and pepper if you like.
Now we're ready to build an epic salad.
I like to put a mix of different greens to keep things interesting. Got some red onion
and some little wedges of locally grown tomatoes.
And on goes a serving of delicious, saucy spicy peanut tofu.
Of course, what is an epic salad without avocado? I don't know and I don't want to find out.
There's some basil chiffonade. which is just thinly sliced basil leaves.
And chopped scallion.
There is no dressing as the saucy peanut tofu has enough flavour in my opinion but I do
like to add a squeeze of fresh lime.
And that, my friends is the salad that I am currently obsessed with. This coming from
a someone who is not a huge salad fan. I wouldn't call myself a salad hater but I don't purposely
make them often. But this, THIS I could eat for a week straight.
How would you use this saucy, spicy peanut tofu? Let me know in the comments below.
Thanks very much for watching this video. Let me know if you liked it by leaving a comment
and giving this video a thumbs up. And please share it with your friends, especially if
they think vegans only eat salad made of carrots and lettuce. Plus, it really helps with growing
this channel when you share. And, uh, that would be nice of you. And I'd really appreciate
it.
And well that's it. I'll chat with you in the comments below and see ya on monday for
the next vegan cookbook review.
Bye for now!