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Spice it up vegetarian style with  nosphaer's tantilizing tofu dish.

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Ignore the intentionally cheesy and foreign sounding name.

Hello! Good morning!

This is my easy, yummy tofu recipe that I've used to intrigue and delight many uneducated former haters of tofu!

For any super duper tofu lovers, you may criticize that I used extra firm in this, on the grounds that extra firm is overused and leaves other forms unappreciated. Oh well.

On to the recipe!
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Ingredients

For Tofu

- 12 Ounces (weight, not volume) Extra Firm or Super Firm tofu.
- 2 to 3 Tbsp. oil (Canola, vegetable, avocado, safflower, and peanut oils are all good choices here)
- 2 to 3 tsp. Garlic Salt
- Black pepper, to taste
- 2 to 3 Tbsp. Soy Sauce
- Dashes of Sriracha sauce, to taste.


For Nossie's Simple Dipping Sauce

- 1.5 Tbsp. Sake Vinegar/Rice-wine Vinegar
- 1 tsp. Sriracha Sauce
- 3 Tbsp. Soy Sauce
- 1 Tbsp. Wildflower Honey


Preparation
Pat your tofu dry on one or two paper towels, simply pressing each side into a dry towel a few times. Slice it 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick in strips or mini-slabs. Which angle you cut by doesn't matter so much as evenness and consistency.

Coat the tofu slablets in the oil, lightly tossing, rolling or brushing them in the stuff. Then, season your tofu on one side with your salt and desired amount of black pepper. (You may season both sides, but I'll explain why that isn't necessary, in a moment)

Heat a nonstick or stainless steel pan to medium heat, and allow it to get hot. Place your tofu, seasoned-side-up, in the pan, piece by piece, remembering the order you used to place the pieces. Sear the tofu for about 2 minutes on each side. The spiced side usually takes less time to sear evenly. When doing this, avoid overcrowding the pan; multiple loads/batches is completely acceptable; I did two, this morning.

After searing each side, flip the tofu to be seasoned-side up and add the soy sauce into the pan, with the sriracha (still using medium heat) and stir the tofu around gently, in the sauces, until they reduce to little more than a glaze. Your tofu can now be plated and used as you like.

Seasoning both sides was unnecessary, because you'd have to simmer down the soy and sriracha with the tofu present. This would normally destroy the spice crust on the bottom layer anyway, so it'd be a tiny bit of a wasted effort.

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To make the dipping sauce, heat the sake vinegar with sriracha at medium heat, until the vinegar reaches a rapid, steamy simmer (I do all of this in the same nonstick pan). Pour in your soy sauce, and reach the same vigorous simmer. Optionally, you can reduce the heat to allow this simmer to go slower, for a more aromatic sauce. If you're on the fly, keep it up to medium heat, and stir it with a rubber spatula. When the sauce's volume is cut in half, reduce the heat, and gently melt in the honey. This should yield roughly 4 to 5 tablespoons of saucy goodness (pictured in the top right)

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These two items go delightfully together, and the total cook time is seriously speedy, and can be done lazily, or in a rushed manner.

Eat these amongst themselves, or pair them with a bit of fresh-cooked rice, or (as I did this morning) use it to spruce up a so-so bit of take-out, like chow mein.

Most of all, enjoy this original, veghead-friendly recipe. Thank you!

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Allergy warning – recipe contains soy products