Sweet and Sour Tofu

The end of the semester can be a tough time. I would love to write entries every day, but the free time that I used to cook has been sucked up by the work of my classes. It's the last week of class, though, and I have only two finals, one of which I'm not very worried about, so pretty soon, I'll have lots of time. For now, here's a short and quick recipe I'd like to share.

Number four from my Go-To Vegetarian Recipe Collection. This is my mom's recipe, adapted for tofu. We always eat Sweet and Sour Sauce with fried pork, but I don't get along with fried foods anymore. I asked my mom to cook along with me because she never measures anything and I measure almost everything so I needed to learn how many tablespoons or teaspoons of this and that go into this dish. Together, we came up with these measurements. My mom made it a bit different from the way she would make it when she uses fried pork, but it still has the same sweet and sour taste. Of course, you can take out the tofu and use any meat of your choice. I like to fry my tofu just to give it more shape and flavor. The sauce is also not as thick as other Sweet and Sour sauces might be, but you can add more cornstarch than the recipe calls for if you'd prefer that. I used potato flour this time instead of cornstarch because it was just sitting in my fridge, but I'd stick with cornstarch next time. The potato flour added somewhat of an unwanted color to my sauce.



Sweet and Sour Tofu [Makes 2 servings]

- 1 tbsp oil
- 1 package tofu
- 1 small onion, sliced
- 1 bell pepper, julienned
- 1/4 cup carrots, julienned or sliced
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 1/2 cups water
- 2 tsp cornstarch

1. Heat oil in skillet to medium heat. Take the tofu out of the package and squeeze as much water out with paper towels. Cut into equal size pieces and fry until golden brown on each side. Set aside.
2. In a saucepan, add onion, bell pepper, and carrots and cook until tender.
3. Add soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, water, and fried tofu and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let it cook for 5 minutes or so.
4. Meanwhile, dissolve cornstarch in 1 tbsp cold water and slowly add to saucepan. Bring to a boil and let the cornstarch cook for 1 minute.