[Experiments in Kitchen #3] Honey Sriracha Tofu with Vegetables

First Time

Two years back, I had never had tofu. When we started bringing tofu, I started experimenting with it. In these two years, I had made tofu in a variety of ways. Mostly by replacing paneer with tofu in spicy curries. The curry could be of spinach or simple onion and tomato.

This recipe is my husband’s find. He wanted to eat tofu cooked in a different style. His search led him to this video recipe on youtube. 

After watching the video myself, I told him that we don’t have extra firm tofu, sriracha sauce, and zucchini at home. But, I could see his strong desire to have honey sriracha tofu for dinner. Therefore, I suggested a small trip to local grocery store. 

So we went to the grocery store and bought extra firm tofu, sriracha sauce, and one zucchini. This was the first time I went to grocery store specially to buy the ingredients for a recipe. Mostly, I would just replace the ingredient with what I had in my kitchen. But, that day, even I couldn’t have found a replacement for extra hot red chili sauce. 

Being the Sous-Chef

He wanted to prepare this recipe that night. So he asked me to be his sous-chef for the duration. You know his assistant for that night. My task was to cut the vegetables, boil the pasta and roast the sesame seeds. This happens quite often, cooking together. Sometimes, he becomes the sous-chef for me. And other times, I am the sous-chef for him. 

Cooking Together

So that day, I did exactly that. As per his instructions, I cut onions, mushrooms, zucchini, carrots, scallions, green chilies, ginger, and garlic. And also roasted the sesame seeds. In the meantime, he drained excess water from tofu and started grilling tofu after cutting it into small pieces.

Chopped Vegetables

The recipe involved marinating tofu with a sauce. For that, he poured sriracha into a bowl, followed by garlic, ginger, soy sauce, honey, green onions and black pepper. Then mixed it thoroughly. 

Honey Sriracha Sauce

On one burner, I sauteed the vegetables with remaining ginger and garlic in little olive oil. Once vegetables started leaving some moisture, I added soy sauce and little water. The key here is to stop at just the right moment. We don’t want our vegetables to sag, instead to maintain that extra crunch. 

Sauteed Vegetables

By then the tofu was grilled from all sides. Here comes the final step, marinating tofu with the honey sriracha sauce. In a sauce pan, he poured the sauce and tofu. He let the mixture simmer for few minutes until the sauce has coated the tofu very well. The final touch was sprinkling roasted sesame seeds over the honey sriracha tofu.

Tofu before grilling

Grilled Tofu

At last, I started boiling the pasta. I selected angel hair spaghetti to go with Honey Siracha Tofu.

Putting it all together

So we have three things here, pasta, vegetables, and honey sriracha tofu. One way is to add all of them together and have them. The other a bit fancy way is to prepare the layers before serving. The first layer is the spaghetti, next is the vegetables,  and finally the honey sriracha tofu and garnish with little-roasted sesame seeds and green onions.

This was one delicious dinner. The crunchy vegetables, the sweet and spicy honey sriracha tofu and spaghetti blended together into one mouthwatering and delectable dinner.

Honey sriracha tofu with vegetables

Honey Sriracha Tofu with Vegetables

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Serves: 2 Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cooking Time: 30 Minutes

Ingredients

• 340g extra firm tofu
• 2 Carrots roughly chopped
• 1 Zucchini roughly chopped
• 1 Capsicum roughly chopped
• 1 cup mushrooms roughly chopped
• 1 cup chopped green onions/scallions
• 2 green chilis chopped
• 1 onion roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp oil
• 2 tbsp chopped ginger
• 2 tbsp chopped garlic
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 cup sriracha sauce
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 3 tbsp honey
• 1 Packet Pasta (Any type)
• 4 tbsp roasted sesame seeds
• Salt to taste

Instructions

Honey Sriracha Sauce

1. Take a bowl. Add sriracha sauce. Followed by 1 tbsp ginger and 1 tbsp garlic.
2. Then mix soy sauce, honey, black pepper and around 3 tbsp scallions.

Honey Sriracha Tofu

1. Drain excess water from tofu and chop into small pieces
2. Pour little oil in the grill pan and transfer all the chopped tofu to it.
3. Keep on rotating tofu to grill it from all sides. Once it has turned brown from all sides, remove it from the burner.
4. In a sauce pan, add prepared Honey Sriracha Sauce. Then add the tofu. Mix them. Add salt. Let it simmer on medium flame until all the sauce coats the tofu.
5. Now sprinkle some roasted sesame seeds and mix them.

Vegetables

1. In a pan, add oil. Add ginger, garlic, and all the chopped vegetables. 
2. Saute for around 5 minutes. Vegetables will leave some water by now. Add one cup water and 2 tbsp soy sauce. Mix well. Close the flame.

Serving

1. Boil pasta separately.
2. First, add pasta, then vegetables on top of it, followed by honey sriracha tofu.
3. Sprinkle some roasted sesame seeds and green onions and serve.

Notes

I used Barilla's Angel Hair Spaghetti for this recipe

Next time

After the success of this recipe, now I will replace tofu with paneer(Indian cottage cheese) or replace the spaghetti with rice/quinoa and prepare it. And then see, how the changed recipe comes out.

Happy Cooking!

[Experiments in Kitchen #3] Honey Sriracha Tofu with Vegetables