So I am sure this isn’t just Korean because having deep fried tofu I feel, is something a lot of Asians and now the world love. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t like something that’s deep fried?! And my boyfriend’s old housemates, shoutout to Devi and Tom, used to make this veggie dish all the time which always looked like amaaaaaazing but also a lot of work because they did it properly – marinated the tofu properly with the sauce and waited for it sometime etc etc. Their food was always delicious but I basically wanted a slightly easier and quicker way (cheat’s way basically cos I am tired).
And I have tried many methods of deep frying tofu at home but failed many times. When I say fail, I mean the degree of crispiness wasn’t to the level I was happy with (I wanted it to be like McDonald’s chicken nuggets). And I wasn’t going to be happy with it until it tasted like absolute bombtastic and without a deep fryer, I thought it would be quite tricky.
But I feel like I found a happy medium and also some Korean chilli sauce to go with it! And I want to share the tips with you guys!
Oh and we had some somaek too yaaaas (soju – Korean rice spirit 19-21%, national drink mixed with beer!)
Ingredients
Fried tofu – Most things you can buy it in your nearby Korean or Asian supermarket!
- Tofu (or we say dubu 두부 in Korean) – you need firm tofu for this – roughly 350g needed
- Korean frying mix 튀김가루 – you can also use this whilst you’re cooking for Kimchi pancake (kimchijeon 김치전) or anyyyy Korean savoury pancake, so I suggest you stock up on this! It is a staple in my house (healthy I know) – I would say 100g is probably needed. The thing with me and as a food blogger, I need to be not too lazy and actually measure it, but I always forget. ha.
- Cornflour – I would say 100g is probably needed again
Sauce
- Honey
- Soy sauce
- Korean chilli paste – they’re called gochujang and you’ll need this for most Korean food (literally)
- Korean chilli flakes
Alcohol – Somaek 쏘맥
- Soju
- Jinro Chamisul Soju Duo pack – Classic 350ml alc 20.1% and Fresh 350ml 17.8% alc
- Your favourite beer – we normally like having it with Asahi because they never stock Korean beers in supermarkets (cry cry), but at the same time, Korean beers don’t taste the best so oh well.
How to make it – (Refer to my very basic illustrations)
- Get yourself a chopping board and knife
- Get tofu, take it out of the pack and cut it like the image below and get yourself a kitchen towel!
3. The put the kitchen towel over the top of tofu – which will be quite wet, so the aim is to absorb some of that moisture!
4. Grab cornflour and 튀김가루 (Korean frying mix), and put this in 1:1 ratio in a zip bag! Or a bag in which you can tie up or close somehow
5. The reason why you need a zipbag is because you’re going to add the tofu in the bag which contains 1:1 mix from the step previously.
6. Now shake the bag!! Literally, this is the best cheat’s way of coating anything because you can just shake the bag once it’s zipped and everything is beautifully coated.
7. Now heat the pan, use a pan that is deep enough where you can put enough oil so you can almost deep fry it. Your tofu should be nicely coated in white cornflour-frying mix ready to be sizzled!
8. Fry them, make sure you turn them if you haven’t got enough oil for the tofu to be immersed. I think it takes like 15 minutes to fry them until I am happy with the crispiness – I go sometime too OTT and burn it slightly ooops
And then plate it up and you’re done!
For sauce!
- Heat your pan, get 2 tbsp of gochujang in some vegetable oil and heat it up until it becomes more liquidey
- Then add 2 tbsp of brown sugar or preferably honey
- Add 2 tbsp of soy sauce
- Add 1 tsp of Korean chilli flakes for extra spice and heat it up, mix it!
- Voila you’re done x A dip that’s just runny enough!
