Today I'm going to show you how to turn this into this, so stick around! Welcome back to No Recipes. I'm Marc Matsumoto, and I'm here to show you how to elevate your everyday meals, so smash that subscribe button and ring that bell so you don't miss out! I know for most people tofu isn't something to get too worked up over, but in Japan, it's a versatile ingredient that's used in everything from soups and stews to salads and desserts. The key is to think about tofu as a blank canvas on which you can paint almost any texture or flavor that you like. Today I'm going to be
turning this boring bean curd into crave-worthy, crispy tofu bites that literally gush with flavor. The trick is to salt and dry the surface of the tofu before deep frying it. This creates a crisp savory skin that absorbs flavors like a sponge, while the insides remain tender and juicy. With an ultra crispy crust and a juicy flavorful interior, these bite-sized cubes of tofu
make for a delicious bar snack for carnivores and vegans alike. The sweet and savory Japanese-style glaze is loaded with fragrant ginger, pungent garlic, and spicy black pepper, which makes these little crispy bites ridiculously flavorful. Sound good? Let's have a look at our ingredients. Our ingredients are 1/4 cup mirin, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 small piece of ginger, 1 large clove of garlic, 1 scallion, 2 teaspoons of toasted sesame seeds, and 1/2 teaspoon of coarsely ground black pepper. For the tofu, I'm using 1/8 teaspoon of salt, along with 1 pound of medium firm tofu. To get the tofu to crisp and to keep it from spattering, we need to reduce its water content as much as possible. That's why i like to take the tofu out of its packaging and drain it on a wire rack for about an hour. You can see here how much water the tofu has released. Now let's get the tofu onto a triple layer of paper towels, and I'm gonna cut it into nine cubes. Then I'm gonna sprinkle all
the sides with the salt. This not only seasons the tofu, the salt helps remove even more water from the surface. While we wait for osmosis to work its magic on the tofu, I'm gonna chop up a scallion to use as a garnish. I'm only gonna be using the green part today, so save the stem for something else, and then cut the leaves into segments and gather them up before chopping them. We have very thin scallions here in Japan, but if they're bigger in your country, you may want to use chives. Okay, let's prepare our glaze. I've got a frying pan here, and I'm going gonna grate in the ginger. I'm using a daikon grater here, and I love these because the holes prevent the teeth from getting clogged, but anything that'll turn your ginger into pulp will work. Then I'm gonna gather up the pulp and squeeze the ginger juice out. You don't have to do this, but ginger pulp can be a bit fibrous, so I usually like to remove it. Now I'm just gonna grate in the garlic. Next, I'm gonna add the mirin, soy sauce, and black pepper. Okay, let's get this over to the stove and bring it to a boil. The ginger, garlic, and
pepper add a ton of flavor, and a mild kick to this sweet and savory sauce, so it's great for glazing proteins or for seasoning stir fries. Once it's at a full boil, let it go for about another minute or until it barely starts to thicken. It'll thicken some more as it cools, so don't let it get too syrupy. Okay, let's transfer this to a bowl and set it aside. By the way, this video was sponsored by viewers like you, so I want to send a special thank you to everyone in the No Recipes crew. If you're not a member yet and want to get access to recipe previews and behind the scenes updates, I hope you'll consider clicking the link in the description down below to join. Back to the tofu. As you can see, it's released a bunch of liquids, so I'm gonna use the paper towels to soak up as much of it as I can. These paper towels are sopping wet already, so I'm gonna use a new one to get each cube of tofu as dry as possible. This is super important or it's gonna splatter like crazy when you add it to the hot oil, and it's also gonna take longer to crisp. Okay, these are looking good, so let's fry them up. I've got a pot with about
two inches of vegetable oil that I've preheated to 180 degrees Celsius or 360 degrees Fahrenheit, and I'm gonna carefully lower the cubes of tofu into the oil. If you've dried the surface
of the tofu sufficiently it shouldn't splatter too much, but you always want to be careful around hot oil. Now you just want to let these fry undisturbed for about 5 minutes. The tofu is most likely
going to stick to the bottom of your pot, so you don't want to move it around until it's browned and formed
a nice crust on the bottom. All right let's check these out. it's still a little stuck, but I'm gonna go ahead and flip them over now. Make sure you get a good grip from the sides and use a delicate touch, so you don't tear the pieces in half. Once you flip them over, let the tofu fry for another 5 minutes, or until it's uniformly golden brown. These are starting to look perfect, so let's get them straight into our sauce. The trick to ensure the tofu stays crispy is to glaze them while they're still piping hot, and to pull them out of the liquid before they have a chance to go soggy. Okay, and I'm just gonna sprinkle some sesame seeds on top here, and we're gonna toss this together. Oh man, you can hear it's so crispy, and it smells amazing! Right, I'm gonna go take a little bite here. Oh, it's still so crispy and hot! Crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside! All right, let's get this plated up. The tofu is going to be
crispiest when it's still hot, but it'll retain some of its
crispness for a few hours. I went with a Japanese-style
glaze for these today, but this method works with almost any sauce, and I love making plant-based buffalo wings by tossing these Crispy Tofu Bites in a bowl of Frank's Hot Sauce. Okay, I think I'm gonna spoon a bit more glaze on top. I'm also gonna sprinkle on some more sesame seeds and crack on a bit more black pepper. Let's scatter some scallions
on top for a pop of color, and our Crispy Tofu Bites are done! I know no one's doing dinner parties these days, but these Crispy Tofu Bites are equally delicious as a virtual cocktail party canape, or as an entrée along with a bowl of rice, so I hope you'll give these a try! If you enjoyed this video you can help me out by giving this a big thumbs up and by sharing it with all your friends that might enjoy this. Well, I'm gonna go crack open a cold one and enjoy these while they're still crisp, but I'll catch you in the next one!
