Sticky sweet chilli tofu… so good…
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that looks delicious. do you have a recipe for this?
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This is from a book by a local vegan author. Her web site is https://www.edenvegan.co.nz/ and I didn’t spot this recipe on that site, so hopefully she doesn’t mind me copying it out (or paraphrasing) for you! I bought the book partly to support someone local, but leafing through it I realised that everything looked pretty easy to make, which is really nice – neither vast amounts of ingredients, nor large numbers of steps for cooking.
Sticky Sweet Chilli Tofu
Ingredients(*)
- 300g tofu (I used 600g) cut into 2cm cubes
- 1 red capsicum, sliced (I used 2)
- 1.5 cups of pineapple chunks (the tin I used was ~2 cups)
Marinade
- 0.25 cup maple syrup (I opted for fake maple syrup on this occasion)
- 0.25 cup ketchup
- 0.25 cup soy sauce
- 0.25 cup boiling water
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 2-3 tsp chilli flakes(**)
- 0.25 cup cornstarch(***)
To serve (or just make it up)
- Your favourite rice
- Shredded carrot
- Sesame seeds
- Sliced spring onion
Cooking
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May as well start the rice cooking first, if you’re doing that.
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Leaving the cornstarch until last, mix together the marinade ingredients in a bowl. Stir in the cornstarch and mix thoroughly. Add tofu, and stir to coat it all thoroughly.
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Heat a dash of oil in a pan on medium heat. Add capsicum and pineapple and sauté for 5-6 minutes(****), or until softened.
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Add the tofu/marinade and cook for 10 minutes(*****) until everything is well coated and sticky.
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Serve on rice with shredded carrot and sliced spring onion. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.
Notes
(*) I used the marinade ingredients as they were written, but roughly doubled the tofu/vege proportions, and there was plenty of marinade to go around!
(**) I used 2 tsp of chilli flakes, which was plenty hot enough for me. I don’t love very hot spice, so I might even go with 1 tsp next time to make it more mild.
(***) A very fine white powder. In NZ and Australia (and also the UK and Europe, I gather), cornstarch is generally called “cornflour”; but in the US (so maybe elsewhere in America too) “cornflour” is something quite different. Hooray for consistency! (Confusing enough that I had to re-write this note because I’d gotten it mixed up again :). For the rest of the world I have no idea what the names will be. My impression is that “cornstarch” is probably unambiguous, but that depending on where you live it might be sold as “cornflour”, in which case you might want to double-check what it consists of.
(****) I cooked this a bit longer because I had more, but then found I’d managed to burn it slightly on the bottom of the pan, so I had to remove the veges to a plate and clean the pan before continuing, so keep an eye on it.
(*****) Stir regularly. The marinade will turn into a lovely thick gooey mess as it cooks, so move it around frequently so it’s not left sticking to the pan. (I didn’t have any problems, but could imagine it burning if you just left it.)
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I’m very happy to still be working my way through the left-overs from that :). I’ll note that the marinade did congeal further as it cooled, and ended up a bit jelly-like, but it’s still really good.
I used 2 tsp of chilli flakes, which was plenty hot enough for me. I don’t love very hot spice, so I might even go with 1 tsp next time to make it more mild.
Definitely limiting it to 1 tsp next time. It doesn’t linger for too long, but it’s definitely hotter than I’d like it to be up front. I’m slightly surprised the recipe didn’t give a broader range (or maybe the chilli flakes I have are more potent). So if you like things mild, go easy on the flakes.
In fact, I’ll probably try a no-chilli version next time. That first one was purely for me, as my partner doesn’t do hot spices at all (sad), but I don’t see why it wouldn’t still be yum without the chilli.
I added some of my home-made hummus to it tonight, which went nicely with that and the carrot. I’ll have to try it with my smoky paprika hummus too – I’m not certain how that flavour will blend with the other flavours, but it’s great with carrot.
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I made something slightly akin to Glamorgan sausages with mashed cauliflower as the main ingredient. The recipe wanted them deep-fried, but I’ve never deep-fried anything in my life and aren’t about to start now. I ‘shallow-fried’ a couple, but in the end we just baked the rest in the oven, and they were very nice.
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Salt and pepper chicken and some fried rice. Much cheaper than takeaway and quicker than ordering on a Friday night.
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Also looks actually lovely, as opposed to our local takeaway.
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Signs I lived in Texas, specifically San Antonio, too long: one of my all time favorite breakfasts will forever be breakfast tacos. Beans, sausage, eggs, cheese, and hot sauce, plus for my husband bell peppers, salsa, and sour cream.
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This kiwi thinks they look like what I’d call pikelets. Although an online dictionary just told me that’s a synonym for crumpets, which I think of as something different again.
To me, pancakes are the same thing as crêpes. That’s not consistent everywhere in NZ, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen the phase “Kiwi pancakes”, and to be honest I’d always thought that referring to the smaller & thicker variety as “pancakes” was a U.S. thing!
the recipe claims to make 4…
Ah, yes, it might well have been 4 at the size I’m thinking of :).
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They are American-style pancakes. The “kiwi” refers to the copious quantity of the fruit that I used! I could probably create the sort of pancakes you’re thinking of if I blended the fruit before mixing it in to the batter.
Also, crumpets and pikelets are definitely different 
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They look like the sort I know as “Scotch Pancakes” - about 7-8cm in diameter, about 5mm thick, and containing raisins or sultanas.
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In my head pikelets and scotch pancakes are the same thing; pancakes are the wide flat floppy things that some people call crepes; crumpets are the round things about an inch thick with a top full of holes…
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For extra confusion, I thought one of them might be approximating a Karelian pie because of that crinkled edge.
(Usually rye crust, rice filling.)
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Ah I always get caught out when someone refers to the fruit as just “kiwi” – it’s an overloaded word in NZ, so here the fruit is unambiguously “kiwifruit”. I imagine the NZ crops might even have been marketed overseas as “kiwifruit” to begin with – but if so I can also see how, in countries which don’t have anything else named “kiwi”, the suffix “fruit” might have seemed unnecessary :).
The birds are adorable. They’re nocturnal, so to my knowledge a scene like the following is really unusual (there’s a comment on the video suggesting that its night time foraging may have been unsuccessful, forcing it to try again in daylight), but what lovely footage it is:
Youtube has just shown me a few such videos, and I’ve been watching with a delighted smile plastered across my face the entire time – I have such affection for these creatures, but almost never get to see them. The idea of just encountering one out on a walk like that is amazing to me.
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I was delighted to discover that the fruit was (re)named after the bird, being originally known as “Chinese gooseberries” in English.
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Likewise. I was today years old when I discovered that the word “kiwifruit” (which I think has a space in it when written in the UK) is younger than my parents.
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Been on a bit of a cooking binge most weekends but made ricotta gnocchi for the first time yesterday was surprisingly simple and yum.
Tasted better than it looks.
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