One of the many, many trials to being a vegetarian (I exaggerate, obviously) is making up for the lack of meat fat in your food. Let’s be fair, those who cook with meat have an advantage that comes through being able to through in a few chunks of bacon, or some chicken stock, or so forth. Obviously, this is something we all live with, and whilst it’s not a huge drag, I do sometimes wonder how it is that restaurants are able to make their food so tasty. One of my favorite dishes from our local Thai restaurants is fried tofu with cashews. It’s great.

So, I decided to have a go at cooking something like it at home, myself. It should be pointed out that the nearest I’ve ever got to South East Asia is Turkey, so it’s not like a have a huge cultural background to this, and I absolutely make no claims as to it’s authenticity. It does eat well, mind.

Quantities are a little vague, and you’ll have to adjust for personal taste in terms of spiciness / how much you like to eat, and so forth.

Ingredients (enough for one, if you’re quite hungry):

Firm tofu – about 4oz

Raw cashews  - ¼ cup

Small red pepper, sliced into smallish pieces

Small onion, chopped, but not too fine

Four cloves of garlic (at  least – I used more, but I Love garlic), roughly chopped

Soy sauce

Tomato Paste

Handful of thai basil

Chillies (dried, or fresh, amount dependant on taste)

Method

Slice the tofu into slices approx a ¼ inch think, and then into bite sized squares. You don’t want to let them get too small, mind, or you won’t get the nice fluffy bit inside the crispy outside. Next, pour some oil (sunflower oil, not extra virgin olive oil, this’ll just burn) into a frying pan, so that it’s about 1/8 of an inch deep – the idea is that when you fry the tofu, there won’t be any missed bits on the side when you flip it over.

Heat the oil, and when it’s nice and hot, fry off the tofu pieces, in batches if necessary. It’s going to get reheated later, so don’t worry about keeping it warm. It’ll take about three minutes a side, depending on your hob. When it looks nice and golden and crispy, remove with a slotted spoon onto some kitchen paper to soak up the excess oil. Before you take the pan off the heat, throw in the cashews for about thirty seconds – make sure they come out before they burn. Put them with the tofu on the paper.

Next, you’re going to have to stir fry the rest of the vegetables, so if your frying pan is big enough, tip some of the oil out and use that, otherwise, put some of the oil in a wok, and when it comes up to heat, stir fry the pepper, garlic, onion and chilies for a couple of minutes. When you’ve done this, reduce the heat a bit, pour in a decent slug of soy (about half a shot glass, maybe a bit more), about a tablespoon and a half of tomato paste, and stir in the basil leaves. If it looks a little dry, taste it; if it’s not too salty, add a bit more soy, otherwise, you can use a little water to keep it moist. Finally, add the tofu and cashews, mix it around for a bit till they’re all covered, give it a couple of minutes to come up to warm through, and there you are. Serve with some steamed rice.

Please feel free to add your own comments on this – always looking for ways to tasty things up!