The General and Me

Yesterday, after a quick dash to the co-op for some extra ingredients, I attempted to make General Tso's Tofu. I was a bit wary, as when I try to recreate dishes that I eat on a regular basis from restaurants, I'm usually never quite as pleased with my own version. However, after last night I may have to change that way of thinking.

The tofu came out beautifully, and this is definitely a dish I will be making again in the future, either with tofu or chicken.

I mostly followed the recipe with a few of my own (perhaps unintentional) twists.

I got all my ingredients together first

I made the sauce first, but made the mistake of reading through the recipe too quickly, and added the sesame oil to the sauce. (It's supposed to be for the ginger & scallions). In the end, it didn't seem to matter at all, and even gave the sauce a nice touch.

My happy looking tofu

I decided to buy another brick of tofu, which ended up being a good idea - we had 10 adults, 8 kids and 1 baby show up for potluck! (I ended up doubling the sauce part as well).

My first task was cutting up the tofu and frying it. I never seem to be able to copy the crunchy quality of restaurant tofu, but last night that all changed with one simple ingredient: corn starch. I had never thought to coat the tofu in corn starch before frying it, but it made all the difference. I may have snacked on more than one while I cooked them in batches...

After the tofu was cooked, I chopped up the scallions and ginger, enjoying how fragrant they both were.

After frying up the ginger and scallions, I added the sauce to the wok. I was a bit worried because it looked a little liquidy, but when I added the tofu it seemed to thicken up nicely.

The only thing I would change for next time would be to lessen the amount of brown sugar since this turned out a bit too sweet for my taste. Otherwise, it was an easy and delicious meal to make, and will definitely be making an appearance again soon!

Full recap of the rest of the dishes should be up tomorrow!

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