General Tso's Tofu

Hadice's Note:

Great alternative to General Tso's Chicken. Contributed to a vegetarian website by Sarah Booth.

• Total Time: 30 mins
• Prep Time: 25 mins
• Cook Time: 5 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 1 (16 ounce) box firm tofu
• 1 egg
• ¾ cup cornstarch
• vegetable oil (for frying)
• 3 chopped green onions
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 2⁄3; cup vegetable stock
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• red pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon sherry wine (optional)
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• steamed broccoli

Directions:

1. Drain, dry and cut tofu into one inch chunks-You can freeze the tofu the night before to get a more"chicken-like" texture, if desired.
2. Mix egg with 3 Tbs of water.
3. Dip tofu in mixture.
4. Sprinkle cornstarch over tofu to completely cover.
5. Heat oil in pan and fry tofu pieces until golden brown and set aside.
6. Drain oil.
7. Heat 3 Tbs vegetable oil in pan on medium heat and add onions, ginger and garlic, cook for about two minutes (be careful not to burn garlic).
8. Add vegetable stock, soy sauce, sugar, red pepper flakes and vinegar.
9. Mix 2 Tbs of water and 1 Tbs cornstarch and pour into mixture, stirring well.
10. Add fried tofu and coat evenly.
11. Serve immediately with steamed broccoli over your choice of rice.

Reviews

[vegboy8896]

Flavorful sauce, and overall a good recipe. I highly recommend following some of the other reviewers' suggestions to marinate the tofu in the sauce before coating in the egg and cornstarch mixture and baking at 325F for about 30 minutes. If you like your General Tso's with a lot of sauce, I recommend doubling the sauce recipe, which will give you enough marinade for the tofu and plenty of sauce for the dish itself.

[whtbxrmom]

This was good. I think if I make it again I will follow in the footsteps of some of the other reviewers and marinate the tofu so it takes on more flavor and maybe try baking it instead. This had too much of a fried flavor, but that may just be me, we try to eat healthy and don't eat fried foods very often so I probably noticed this more than anyone else. I did double the sauce and may try to thicken it a little more next time. Served with steamed broccoli and brown rice.

[Tracy Pontarollo]

I am not much of a tofu lover so I decided to try this with A couple of modificatitions. I made the sauce and marinated the tofu in it before breading it with the egg and cornstarch.( for a couple of hours.) Then I baked the tofu in a 325 oven for approximatley 30 min. so that it was crispy and then I used the "marinade" plus made an extra batch of sauce and proceded with the rest of the recipie. I must say it was YUMMY YUMMY. I had it with stirfried broccoli, baby corn, snowpeas and rice. The tofu had better flavour by marinating first and you can eliminate a lot of the oil by baking it instead of frying.