- Today we're making an
incredible tofu stir fry. Tofu is coated in spices
and fried until crispy. Then it's paired with some
tender yet crisp vegetables and an outrageously good
Chinese stir fry sauce. We're gonna get started
with our vegetables once I move this very
heavy, wobbly tray over. I've got snap peas and bell peppers today. Snap peas are super easy because you don't have to
prep them, which is great. The bell pepper, you only
really need one bell pepper for this amount of stir
fry, but I'm using half of the yellow and half of red
to make it look extra pretty. And for the bell peppers, I'm
just gonna slice them thinly. First though, remove the core. Ta-da. In general what you wanna use
about a pound of vegetables. If you wanna use different
vegetables, that's totally fine. Check out the blog post
'cause there's a whole section that has tips and substitutions on which vegetables to use
and how long to cook them. Do the same for our red pepper. That is it for our vegetable prep. Super quick. Also prep our garlic
and ginger at this time and I'm just going to chop
them, not finally mince or dice them because we
don't want them to stick to the wok and burn. For the ginger, I don't
usually bother peeling it because it is edible and it's kind of annoying
to peel so I leave it on. Okay, vegetables are prepped,
aromatics are prepped and this is important. You do need to prep everything ahead of time because when it comes
time to cooking the stir fry it moves super quickly so you
don't have time to multitask. The next component of our stir fry is the
sauce and it is so easy. Takes two minutes and it's so flavorful. We're gonna start with one and a half tablespoons of soy sauce. This is Chinese light soy sauce but any standard grocery
store, Kikkoman soy sauce, whatever you wanna call it will work. And if you're gluten free make sure you use gluten
free soy sauce or tamari. This is one and a half tablespoons. We're also gonna do one
and a half tablespoons of rice vinegar for a little bit of tang. Hoisin sauce. This is made with fermented soybean paste so it's really savory, but it's also salty and sweet so you get a lot of complexity and depth
of flavor with this. We want two tablespoons of this. This is Shaoxing wine. It's a Chinese rice wine. It's used very commonly in Chinese stir fries and
it's a little bit sweet. It's complex, it's a little tangy. We're gonna use two tablespoons of that. Now for one of my favorite
ingredients, the spicy stuff. This is chili garlic sauce. Any kind of chili sauce will be fine. Y'all know I like it's spicy so I'm gonna use two tablespoons, but for most folks I'd say
start with one tablespoon. At this point we have a lot
of acidity and some spiciness. So to balance that we're gonna
add a little bit of sugar. I like brown sugar 'cause it has a little more
flavor than white sugar. So this is one tablespoon right now. Last ingredient, three tablespoons of vegetable broth or water. I happen to have leftover vegetable broth. If you don't just use
water, it's totally fine. Now it's time to shake it up. (liquid sloshing) That's it. And you can actually
double or triple this sauce because it'll stay good in the
fridge for at least a week. If you're doing some sort
of meal prep on Sunday, if you make the sauce, if
you chop your vegetables you're almost halfway
done to making the recipe, so you can make your
stir right even quicker. The last thing we're
gonna prep is our tofu. You might have had a tofu stir
fry before, that was fine. But we are going for an
amazing tofu stir fry. So there's a couple steps
we wanna take to make sure that our tofu is extra special. The first thing is to use
previously frozen defrosted tofu. Pretty much always have a block of tofu in my freezer because freezing
tofu changes the structure. So the water inside of
the tofu, it turns to ice it starts to expand, and
when it thaws, you're left with like a spongy texture
and lots of little holes which means there's more
surface area for the spices and the sauce to seep into, so
you get more flavorful tofu. Second thing we're gonna
do is to press our tofu. And the reason we do this is because the less water the tofu has, the more it can crisp up and
the more flavor it can absorb. This has been pressed
already for 10 minutes. Now it's time to cut the tofu. And for most stir fries, you
probably would cube the tofu. But I think that cutting it into squares or rectangles works better. I like to slice it first
into two vertical slabs and then you just flip it on its side like this and cut it into slices. About a third of an inch. Because these are thinner
than your standard tofu cubes they're gonna crisp up a lot easier. And unlike tofu cubes which
have lots of different sides these just have two sides so it's a lot easier
to toss and flip them. (upbeat music) The last technique we're
gonna do to make our tofu amazing is to coat it before we cook it. First for flavor, we're
gonna add a few spices. Half teaspoon of kosher salt,
half teaspoon of white pepper half teaspoon of garlic powder as well and a heaping quarter teaspoon
of Chinese five spice powder. We also wanna improve the tofu's texture so I'm adding three
tablespoons of corn starch. Use air root powder if you prefer. And that's gonna give the tofu
that nice crunchy coating. Smells good. I'm not, I'm not. I don't know what that voice
was, but it smells good. Time to give our tofu some love. Sprinkle it on there. Now very gently, kind of
coat the tofu, flip it. Tofu is delicate, so you
know, treat her like a lady. This is very messy. One second. Ooh, the pepper's gonna make me sneeze. (sneezing) Tofu looks good. And while we have the corn starch out we're gonna quickly make
our corn starch slurry. We'll add that at the end and it's gonna make the stir fry glossy and thickened and beautiful. Teaspoon of corn starch and
a tablespoon of cold water. All right, we are ready to start cooking but first I'm gonna cook
some rice so that we have something to serve our stir fry with. (water running) Also gonna chop some cilantro
for our topping at the end. Looks like a good amount. Recipe calls for three quarters cup but just gonna eyeball it. And I use the leaves and tender stems. Stems are edible, they're
delicious, but if they're thick go ahead and omit them. (water running)
(wok clattering) All right, now it's time to cook. I'm using a wok today,
but if you don't have one just use a large frying pan. We're gonna heat it over medium high. And the way to heat your
wok is to heat it dry until you start to see
light wisps of smoke. That's when you add the oil. This is going to prevent your tofu and your vegetables from sticking. Kinda have to lean down
to see the wisps of smoke. It's already happening. We're gonna add some high heat neutral flavored oil into the pan. In she goes. (tofu sizzling) Let me show you what it looks like. If you start to see the
tofu char on the bottom turn down the heat 'cause you
don't want the tofu to burn. If you have a wok, go ahead and shake the pan back
and forth every minute or so and that's gonna help
the tofu not char as much. This is kind of what you're looking for, this nice golden brown color. You can see it's getting kind of smokey, so you might wanna open your windows. When it's time to take it off
the heat, I like to put 'em on a paper towel just to
absorb any of that excess oil. (tofu crunching) We're gonna give this wok
a nice little wipe out. I don't know what "Wipe Out " is. We're gonna wipe out the wok and then we'll start on the vegetables. Same principle. Once you start to see wisps
of smoke, add your oil. Just hanging out down here
waiting for those wisps of smoke. (upbeat music) All right, it's time. Ginger and garlic and
just for 20, 30 seconds. You wanna stir frequently, basically the whole
time so it doesn't burn. (vegetables sizzling) Show up your wrist skills. (gasping)
(vegetables sizzling) So colorful. If you were using some sturdy
vegetables like broccoli or carrots, I would add them
first for a minute or two and then the tender vegetables like these. Time for our sauce. (sauce and vegetables sizzling) Sauce needs about two,
two and a half minutes. Smells great. Let's give you a look. It's bubbling. Let's stir our corn starch slurry from earlier 'cause the corn
starch will have settled. It's gonna thicken pretty quickly. This is gonna help the sauce kind of stick to the vegetables so it's
not like watery and loose. It's more of a glossy, gorgeous texture. All right, kill the heat. Final touches, we're gonna
add the tofu back in. Let's toss that in there. It's looking so good. Couple more ingredients to add. More flavor and texture. Some toasted sesame oil. Just a little drizzle
,about two teaspoons. Some toasted sesame seeds. These are pre-roasted, two
teaspoons of this as well but I'm just gonna a eyeball it. That chopped cilantro from earlier for a little bit of freshness. So colorful and pretty. Ooh, I can't wait to eat. All right, let's go make ourselves a bowl. By ourselves, of course, I mean me, but you will enjoy my enjoyment. (beep) Just look how pretty this is. It's so colorful. The tofu looks amazing. It's just the most inviting dish ever. There's stir fry and then
there's this stir fry. It's unbelievable. The tofu is still crunchy. The flavors are just like
party for your mouth. Spicy, savory, a little sweet, tangy, just like everything
you'd want in a stir fry. You can get the full printable
recipe in the blog post. It's linked below. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you guys later, bye.
