1. this recipe taught me how to make the thick, syrupy sauces you get in Chinese fastfood restaurants, and, amazingly, the answer is not tons and tons of oil, and
2. the food arrangement in the photos came to me in a dream and then forgotten, and was only remembered the next day by Gabe.
"I was dreaming about arranging the orange tofu in a checkerboard pattern, with the rice in-between each square." and immediately back to sleep.
The answer, by the way, to the mystery of the thick sauce, is corn. tons of corn starch (which makes the uncooked sauce into oobleck, which is awesome) and a bit of corn syrup to make it smooth. It's actually more authentic to use tapioca starch, but we couldn't find any in the supermarket.
This recipe turned out really good. The strongly flavored sweet-and-salty, tangy sauce was nicely contrasted by the chewy, clean-tasting tofu. The only changes I would make next time are cooking the green beans less so they remain more crispy and adding less soy sauce, because it ended up dominating the flavor of the sauce so I added a lot of orange juice to compensate, which drowned out the more subtle garlic and ginger flavors. But still overall very delicious. This would be great with any assortment of veggies.
Orange Tofu with Green Beans and Water Chestnuts
1 small onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
10 oz water chestnuts
~30 green beans
2 cups orange juice (fresh is best, but bottled works too)
7 tablespoons tapioca or corn starch
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup soy sauce
brown sugar to taste
1 tbsp corn syrup
1 1/2 tbsp ketchup
1 tsp tomato paste
2/3 cup water
1 tsp minced hot green pepper
1 tsp minced ginger
1 12-oz package firm tofu
1 tbsp lime juice
pepper to taste
1 tbsp cilantro, finely chopped*
*if you're a cilantro-hater, sub in a different fresh herb - it really adds a great contrast flavor
Heat a few tablespoons oil on medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sautee until translucent but not browned. Add the chestnuts and green beans and sautee for a minute. Add about 1/2 cup of orange juice and a bit of brown sugar, and cook for a few minutes - you will be reheating them later, so don't cook them fully yet. Remove from the heat.
Mix the starch, soy sauce, ketchup, tomato paste, vinegar, corn syrup, and water. Set aside.
Heat another tsp of oil on medium. Add the ginger and chili and cook for about 1-2 minutes until fragrant. Add the remaining orange juice and bring to a boil. Add the sauce mixture and stir constantly to prevent the starch from sticking to the bottom of the wok. Continuously stir the broth as it will thicken very quickly. Adjust the flavors, adding more orange juice, soy sauce, and brown sugar to taste. Add the lime juice, pepper, and cilantro to finish. Add more water if the sauce is too thick.
Add the veggies and keep warm, but be careful not to continue cooking the sauce (or make sure to keep stirring it if you do). Prepare the tofu by slicing it into large cubes and pressing out any excess moisture with paper towels. Heat about a 1/4" of oil in a pan on medium. Add one piece of tofu first to get the hang of frying it properly. you want it to cook slowly - if it starts to brown immediately in the pan, your heat is too high. After a minute or two, it should be a nice golden brown - at this point you should flip it and cook it another minute or two. It's not necessary to cook it on each of it's 6 sides, but I was anal about it. When the piece is done, lift it out of the pan and immediately drop it into the sauce - it should be inflated slightly and will shrink as it absorbs the sauce. Chop sticks work great for the detail work of flipping and moving tofu pieces. Once you get the hang of it, you can do a lot of pieces at once, as long as you constantly monitor them.
Your meal is ready when all of the tofu pieces have been added! You will probably end up with way too much sauce for the amount of tofu and veggies - believe me, you will want to save the extra to eat on rice after the leftover tofu is gone. Enjoy!
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