Sawadee ka welcome to hot thai kitchen today I am making a popular Thai Street food that happens
to also be vegetarian I'm making something called tao huh tod tao hu means tofu and
Tod means deep-fried so it's crispy fried tofu and it comes with a sweet chili peanut dipping
sauce uh if you're thinking I'm not a tofu person just hang in there because the sauce is good on
deep-fried anything let's get started this sauce is similar to that sweet chili dipping sauce that
you see on girls restore shelves but it is so much better and so worth the time I'm going to
start out with some pretty file or spur Chili's which are these big mild ish Thai Chili's you
can also substitute other types of red Chili's or bell peppers if you want it not spicy at all
and yes it's frosty because I freeze these and all this is just gonna go into the blender and
I'm also going to throw in a clove of garlic and now all the liquid I've got some water and just
some white vinegar in Thailand the only kind of vinegar that we use is actually white vinegar we
don't have all sorts of fancy different types of vinegar like here in North America and I'm going
to add another source of acid that's going to add a little extra dimension and that is tamarind
okay and now I'm just going to get that into a pot alright so we've got all our assets are sour
in this pot now the sweet granulated sugar to add a little bit of a caramely flavor i'm going
to add some chopped palm sugar and of course a little bit of salt just to bring everything
together i'm going to let this come to a simmer and let it simmer for a few minutes just until
it's thick and has that dipped consistency so it's been simmering for a few minutes and you want to
kill the heat just when it's still a little bit too runny because as it cools it will thicken up
a little bit so the sauce is cooled down and so I like this consistency see it's thick and Dibble
perfect now I'm going to taste it and see if I need to adjust it mmm hmmm okay I'm going to go
in with a little bit more vinegar now it's time to finish it off with first of all some chili flakes
okay now you cook just add some fresh Thai chilies and blend it all up a little bit of spicy good and
peanuts make it even more viscous little stay on the tofu and it also balances out the tartness
you can add more or less peanuts completely up to you and if you're allergic to nuts you can also
try ground sesame seeds cilantro some chopped up cilantro now I wouldn't add the cilantro
until you're ready to serve okay cuz otherwise it'll just wilt and not look great now oh that
looks good and it smells really good now alright so here's the sauce here's my tofu which I've
cut into triangles so I am using firm tofu okay because that's traditionally what we use because
it's Street food it's finger food so soft tofu is not going to hold very well also firm tofu will
fry up crispy ER around the edges I'm also going to salt my tofu a little bit and this is just my
trick they don't do this but I find that if the tofu itself has some seasoning its him year after
salting I just let the salt sort of sit there for a few minutes so that it dissolves on the surface
of the tofu I've got my oil here heating up and you want this at about 375 a little hotter than
normal tofu likes to travel to earth each other and they may stick to each other that's okay let
them stick for a while don't hurry up and and pull them apart because you'll tear them so let
them firm up a little bit once they are firm on the outside then you can pull them apart okay so
give them a minute or so and you could stir them and keep them moving to prevent them from sticking
to each other but careful because it likes to stick to your tongs as well so I'm just going
to go for a light golden brown if I fry them for too long you're going to dry out the tofu more and
more and more so here they are nice and golden and crispy around the edges in case you're wondering
what happened to bu soft tofu I fried some up this isn't super soft tofu it's sort of medium soft
tofu and so what happens is as you can see they get a little bit wrinkly because there's so much
water and the water leaves the tofu and then so it shrinks and wrinkles and also it's not crispy
if you want to fry soft tofu you want to coat it in breadcrumbs or some sort of a breading on the
outside like when they make a kadosh eat tofu then the coating will protect the tofu then the coating
gets brown and crispy and the soft tofu inside gets protected now we eat this as a snack in
Thailand sort of you know the three o'clock snack but it's a great dish to serve as an appetizer
at a party your all your vegetarian friends will be happy there you go and add a little
extra peanuts on top just to you know represent what's inside also a little extra cilantro ah
so good you've got sort of the crispy edges but it's also chewy on the outside and soft
on the inside and the the sweet tartness of the dipping sauce with that a little bit of
spiciness from the roasted chili flakes oh my god this is one of those things where you just you
just can't stop eating so the next time you've got some friends over and you're looking for an
appetizer that's different with a bit of zing make some thought oh and as I said this dipping sauce
good on deep fried anything so the recipe is on hot Thai Kitchen comm if you make this send me
a photo and send it to me on Facebook Twitter or Instagram and I will see you next time for your
next delicious Thai meal and so there they are nice and golden and crispy around the edges now