Great food doesn’t have to keep you tied to the kitchen for a whole evening. Sometimes you just want to get in and get it done, which is one of the many reasons stir-fries are great. This one is packed with flavour and can be ready to eat in the time it takes you to cook some rice. I use the Cauldron simple tofu for this dish. I leave it to drain for 5 minutes by wrapping it in a clean tea towel and putting a heavy saucepan on top to squeeze out the moisture (you can do this while you’re getting your rice ready to save time).
If you enjoy the recipes here, please show your support for this blog by clicking on the ads to help keep the free content coming!
Everything is cut quite large for maximum flavour and there is not a great deal of sauce, though neither is it dry. This is a perfect after work dinner with minimal fuss. You do, however, want to dust the tofu pieces with flour before frying to give them a crispy coating. I’ve used all-purpose gluten-free flour for this, but if you have no gluten issues use whatever flour you have to hand. I promise you this is the only messy part and it’s over with quickly. Get cooking, have fun with it and enjoy an easy and exciting meal.
Prep time: 10 minutes (including draining time). Cooking time 16-18 minutes.
Serves 2.
Gluten Free
Ingredients:
2 tbsp sesame oil
50g gluten-free flour
1x400g block plain tofu, drained and cut into large squares
A pinch of Sichuan peppercorns, roughly pounded
½ tsp garlic granules
½ tsp Chinese five-spice powder
1 tsp tandoori masala curry powder
½ tsp ground ginger
½ aubergine, cut into large squares
12-14 baby plumb or cherry tomatoes, halved
1 small handful of pine nuts
2 tbsp tamari (gluten-free soy sauce)
2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce (check for gluten-free)
Method:
First put the flour into a large bowl and toss the tofu pieces in it until fully coated. Heat half the sesame oil in a wok or large non-stick frying pan and fry the tofu pieces for 6-8 minutes, turning occasionally with tongs, until crisp and browned on all sides. Add the peppercorns, garlic granules, five-spice, curry powder and ginger about 3 minutes before the end of cooking and mix to thoroughly coat. Remove the tofu from the pan and set aside. Rub the pan with kitchen towel and heat the other half of the oil. Fry the aubergine for 4-5 minutes, until soft and browned, then add the cherry tomatoes and pine nuts. Cook for a further 2 minutes until the tomatoes begin to wilt and then add the tamari and sweet chilli sauce. Cook for another two minutes, stirring, until the sauce has mostly gone. Put the tofu pieces back into the pan and stir in. Serve with rice.


WANT TO LEARN TO COOK AMAZING VEGAN FOOD?
SIGN UP TO MY PATREON MEMBERSHIP SITE RICHARD CHURCH’S VEGAN COOK SCHOOL
AND GET UNLIMITED ACCESS TO ONLINE VEGAN COOKING CLASSES
Vegan Enchiladas
To veganise something like Enchiladas now is incredibly easy with the variety of ingredients available in most supermarkets. For this one I have used fresh vegan mince, along with mushrooms and onions for the chilli base. Don’t worry if you don’t like eating vegan mince, you can always substitute this chilli for my Sweet Potato,…
Spanish Lentils with Vegan Chorizo and Black Pudding
I first tried this dish about 25 years ago, when my Spanish girlfriend made it for me in a bedsit we shared in North London back in the mid-nineties. It was cooked on one of those old Baby Belling stoves that you would often see in bedsits back in those days (they might still have…
Vegan Fudge Cookies
We’ve been enjoying packets of vegan fudge in our house for quite a while now and a recent conversation with my wife got me thinking about how great it would be to have the fudge in a cookie, just like it was chocolate chip. This recipe is the product of that discussion: a very simple…
Potato, Courgette and Leek Gratin
With the products available now, a traditional gratin is very easy to turn into a vegan meal. Having good quality alternatives to butter, milk, cream and cheese are essential to giving the gratin its uniquely rich flavour. Thankfully, all of these are now easily obtainable in most supermarkets, giving us the option of having a…
Aubergine Parmigiana
The first thing you will notice when you look at this recipe for vegan Aubergine Parmigiana is that I haven’t used any vegan parmesan cheese. This was a personal choice because I thought the cheese I was using (vegan Cathedral City) had an intense enough flavour that I didn’t need it. That doesn’t mean that…
Sri Lankan Style Vegan ‘Chicken’ and Courgette Curry with Coconut Rotis
This is really three recipes in one. The first part of the recipe is the Ceylon curry powder, which is used as the main spice blend for this dish. The second part is the curry itself and the third is coconut rotis that the curry is served with. Ceylon curry powders can vary depending on…