Sesame Marinated and Roasted Tofu

It feels like forever since I've written up a savoury recipe on the blog, but at long last I am. For the last six months or so, whenever I have tofu in a stir fry I've been roasting it rather just pan frying it and I've found it has made a real difference to my cooking. Whilst a little unconventional, I've found that marinating and roasting a block of tofu really allows it to take in the flavour without having to use lots of oil or sticky marinade. I love the subtle, nutty smokiness of a toasted sesame seed oil, so really wanted to make use of this as a marinade rather than just using a load of teriyaki sauce, which was my lazier go-to option. I've kept the ingredients list fairly low and if you make stir fries even slightly often you will already have most, if not all, the ingredients in your cupboard already. As the tofu is the star of the show here, I love to keep the rest of the stir fry quite simple, adding just a little garlic, ginger and soy sauce to the vegetables with a dash of chilli.

Sesame Marinated Roasted Tofu

 

Author: Eleanor MayC

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 40 mins

Total time: 55 mins

Ingredients

• 200g block firm tofu, pressed if required.
• 1 tsp honey (use maple syrup or coconut nectar if vegan)
• 2 tsp soy sauce or tamarin
• 2 tsp sesame seed oil
• 2cm piece ginger, grated or finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp chilli powder
• 2 tsp sesame seeds (optional)
• 1 medium red onion
• 1 bell pepper
• 1 tbsp high-smoke point oil, such as avocado or rapeseed
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 cm ginger, grated or finely chopped
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 6 small mushrooms -chestnut/button mushroom are fine here, but if you have oyster mushroom or similar, definitely make use of them
• 1 head of pak choi
• Soy sauce
• Rice or noodles, cooked to packet instructions.

Instructions

1. First, get the tofu ready, ideally several hours or even the night before. Combine all the marinade ingredients together. Lightly prick the tofu block all over, place in a small baking tray and spoon over the marinade. Scatter over the sesame seeds if using, and the refrigerate until 30 minutes before cooking.
2. Preheat the oven to 180'c. If there is excess marinade pooling around the tofu, pour this into a cup and set aside. This isn't essential, but stops the extra marinade from caramelising and burning, and allows you to use it on the stir fry. Pop the tofu into the oven and roast for around 30 minutes until golden and lightly crispy. Remove, and slice up the tofu.
3. Chop all the stir fry vegetables into strips and heat the oil in a wok over a high heat. Tip in the onion and pepper, cook for two minutes and add the garlic and spices. When the spices are fragrant, add the mushrooms and crunchy part of pak choi and fry for another minute or two. Finally, add the tofu and pak choi leaves. Serve over rice or noodles -I love buckwheat -garnishing with coriander if desired.

 

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