Life-changing, Sticky, Smoky, Spicy Tofu

Tofu is a delicious, magical, healthy and versatile ingredient – but I still hear complaints from people who can’t seem to get along with it. The most frequent feedback I hear is that the texture seems “damp and unpleasant”, or that the flavour is “bland and sour”.

Although the phrase: “There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing” makes me want to punch a wall, there is some truth in it. The same peppy, judgy approach can be applied to tofu: There is no such thing as bad tofu, just bad cooking. Texture too damp for you? Press the water out and deep fry it. Bland flavour? Add some smoky, salty, chilli notes to your dish. Sour? Douse it in honey.

When I visited Singapore a couple of years ago, my friend Joyce took me to a fantastic hawker market, where she introduced me to a delicious, deep-fried tofu dish – Tauhu Goreng. The tofu was crispy on the outside and yielding in the centre. It was slathered in a creamy, spicy, sauce, but the richness of the dish was neatly offset by some shredded carrot and cucumber – delivering both crunch and freshness. It was magnificent and I have since recreated it in my own kitchen.

On another occasion I tried a wonderful Korean dish, Tteokkochi. where boiled and fried rice cakes are lacquered with a sauce that is thick with honey and rich with gojuchang (a fermented rice paste spiked with chilli powder).

Inspired by the flavours and textures of these two amazing dishes, I decided to make a strange hybrid, to pair the freshness and crispiness of Tauhu Goreng, with the sweet, smoky and spicy flavours of Tteokkochi. I am going to make a bold boast – that this dish could convert tofu-doubters to tofu-lovers.

Gojuchang is available in several UK chain supermarkets, but tends to come in tiny, stingy, expensive pots. I buy it in larger quantities from the Korean or Chinese supermarket. If you want to make this dish gluten free, use a gluten free gojuchang and replace the soy sauce with tamari. If you want to make the dish vegan, replace the honey with a non-bee-related syrup.

With a little julienned cucumber on top, for freshness and crunch

I pack firm tofu, drained, patted dry with kitchen paper and cut into slices 1 cm thick

1 large carrot, grated

1/3 cucumber, julienned

1 finely chopped white onion

Small bunch of chives, snipped

1 thumb of ginger, peeled and finely chopped

2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 tbsp sesame seeds

2 tbsp honey

2 tsp gojuchang

2 tbsp light soy sauce or tamari

1 tbsp sesame oil

50ml water

A little rice vinegar

Place the sesame seeds into a dry frying pan and cook over a low heat until lightly toasted. Place into a bowl and set aside. Cover the bottom of the frying pan with vegetable oil and heat. When the oil is very hot (check by putting a small piece of tofu in, it should hiss and spit a little), place the tofu in the pan and fry, turning once until golden brown on both sides. Remove the tofu to a plate lined with some kitchen paper. Put some more kitchen paper on top of the tofu to remove any excess oil.

Decant the cooking oil from the frying pan into a small saucepan and then return one tablespoon to the frying pan. In a bowl mix the honey, soy sauce, gojuchang, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, onion and carrot together with the water. Stir well until combined.

Reheat the oil in the frying pan and add the contents of the bowl. Cook over a low heat for a few minutes -the kitchen should start to smell really delicious. Add the fried tofu pieces and stew in the sauce for a couple of minutes before turning over. Turn off the heat and scatter with the chives and sesame seeds.

To serve, place the tofu slices on a plate and cover with the sauce. Arrange a pile of cucumber on top of the dish and dot with a few drops of rice vinegar. Serve with plain, boiled rice

Viking Noodles

Number Two Son is in Koh Samui at the moment, with a group of boys. I am trying not to think too hard about what he is getting up to. I made him watch an episode of ‘Banged Up Abroad’ and told him he was to stay away from drugs, mopeds, and ladyboys (the last, simply because ladyboys are hard as nails and would batter him in a fight). I thought that was quite restrained of me – especially because I spent a couple of weeks there on my own –and it was an utterly barking place.

During my stay in Koh Samui, I enjoyed a relaxing daily routine of scoffing fried eggs near the sea, then sitting on the beach for hours on end, chatting to a group of girls, who had befriended me,  pausing to eat a piece of pineapple on a stick or to pour a Singha beer down my neck. It was amazing. The only downside was, as a woman on my own, I attracted an unfortunate amount of attention from a bunch of nutters  wonderfully eclectic line of male, solo-travellers, who wouldn’t really take no for an answer. There was the man who took so much valium recreationally, that he would regularly fall asleep mid chat-up line, drool hanging from one corner of his mouth like a sad, sleepy Komodo dragon. There was the born again Christian, who had missed the memo on no sex before marriage, who was sharking his way up and down Chaweng beach, littering his religious chat with improper suggestions. But my favourite was the Danish Hell’s Angel – by far the most persistent of all. I met him while I was waiting for a friend to return from the full moon party, and an apparition in a canoe kept paddling backwards and forwards past ‘my’ spot on the beach, waving as he passed. He had a pretty tidy form, which was sadly marred by a lot of ink. I’m not fond of tattoos and I could see some serious writing going on around his midriff, along with those obligatory stripy tribal things men have on their upper arms. I took absolutely no notice of the waving, stuck my face  in my Jilly Cooper novel (which puts most British blokes off, as they think ‘horsey posh bird, with unrealistic demands in the bedroom’ ) and hoped he would get tired of canoeing and clear off.

No such luck – a well inked Muscle Mary landed next to me on the beach, whining about how he had just got out of prison, delivering some sob story about a terrible childhood, whilst absent mindedly stroking my foot- which I kept shifting out of the way. He asked me to admire his bodyart. I noticed the writing around his stomach was in gothic script and said something in foreign.  It began with a T, so when pressed, I told him that it reminded me of The Daily Telegraph, a quality newspaper in the UK. That wasn’t what he was looking for at all, but it wasn’t enough to put him off. His next gambit was to explain that this gothic tattoo showed his allegiance to the Hell’s Angels. I put on my bored face and told him that motorbikes were very dangerous and he shouldn’t ride them unless he enjoyed plastic surgery and didn’t rate the use of his limbs. Sadly that just egged him on, as he said to me ‘I like you – so I am going to tell you something I don’t tell many people. As part of my initiation into the Hell’s Angels, I had to kill a man’. By this stage, he had my ankle in a firm grip and I was wishing my novel were a hardback so I could whack him on the head, but instead I carried on chatting to him and  established that he hadn’t been imprisoned for the murder, rather for distributing drugs – he wasn’t a one-trick criminal, and hadn’t ever been fingered for the killing. I really, really wanted to leave, but was too scared to go back to my accommodation, as I was sure he would try and tag along, and actually, since he had hold of my ankle I wasn’t able to move. Mercifully two of his friends, who had been vigorously and enthusiastically copulating in the sea in front of us, returned to claim him, and I escaped.

Despite the sketchy admirers I attracted, I did have a very good time in Thailand and I hope my son is having fun too. One of the best things I did, after meeting a murderer, was a Thai cookery course –where we were taken to a market at the crack of dawn, shown vats of reeking fish sauce and introduced to a lot of ingredients I had never seen in real life. Banana blossom, leek leaves, pickled radishes – all beautifully fresh and exciting. We bought armfuls, retired to this amazing woman’s house, where she made us cook and eat for the next ten hours. It was wonderful, and I staggered out, so full and so excited to cook everything all over again, all traumatic thoughts of vicious Vikings left me.

Pad Thai Gung Sod

I haven’t ever found the same ingredients that we used in my class, so I adapted the recipe to use ones more mainstream and easy to source. The original recipe calls for Chinese Leek leaves – which we can get here in Hong Kong, but I would not hesitate to stick a small bunch of chopped chives, or a little shredded Holy Basil in instead.

My Pad Thai uses pork- but you could substitute chicken or prawns if you prefer. For a vegetarian version – use the same amount of cashew nuts

The best noodles to use are flat, tagliatelle shaped rice noodles. Fresh are best -but if you only have dried, then soak them before using

Pad Thai Gung Sod

300g noodles

3 eggs

1/2 cup ground roasted peanuts

1 tablespoon chopped shallot (the long banana ones are the best)

3 teaspoons fish sauce (can use more or less according to taste)

50g chinese leek leaves

400g bean sprouts

50g pork cut into small pieces

1 cake extra firm soyabean curd (approx 100g) This can be found in most oriental supermarkets and can be either a yellow or a brown colour – the brown one is flavoured with soy sauce and very delicious. Cut into small pieces the size of a postage stamp and about 2mm thick

1 tablespoon dried chilli

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

4 teaspoons sugar (again – add more or less to taste but this is a very sweet dish)

4 teaspoons tamarind juice or lime juice. My teacher suggested substituting vinegar, but I prefer lime for the freshness it gives

Heat a little oil in a large frying pan or wok, add the garlic and shallots and cook for a few moments. Add the noodles, with a little water to soften them. Keep turning them to avoid them sticking. Either remove from the pan, or shove them to one side (but that can be a bit of a mission -I’d just get them out)

Put 3 teaspoons oil into the pan – add the pork, bean curd and chillies and fry briefly. Return the noodles to the pan, add the sugar and fish sauce, mix and put onto a plate.

Put another 2 tsp oil in the pan, add the three beaten eggs and spread them in a thin layer, like a skinny omelet, over the base of the hot pan. When set, return the noodles and mix. Add half the beansprouts, the leek leaves and stir well.

Place on the serving dish and sprinkle with half the ground peanuts and the lime juice. Serve with the remaining beansprouts and  peanuts and a few chopped basil leaves on the side.