Okay, another favorite of mine from a place that longer exists up the street from me is deep fried tofu in black bean garlic sauce. And it also used
to be available at the place down in Midvale, before it changed owners. Oh well.
The Players
What we have here is tofu, obviously, salted black beans, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sherry, dried chilies, ginger, garlic and scallions. Not appearing are chicken broth, cornstarch, peanut oil and such.
The Procedure
First off, the firm tofu is pressed to drain some water out. A plate, a folded paper towel, the tofu, another paper towel, another plate and weighted down with a hard cover edition of The Joy of Cooking.
The somewhat drier tofu is then cubed and tossed in cornstarch.
Meanwhile, the black beans are rinsed, drained and go into the mortar with the minced garlic, ginger and some of the chilies, ground into a coarse paste.
So no pictures of a few steps here. The dusted tofu was deep fried for about 6 - 7 minutes, pulled out and drained on paper towels. Most of the oil got poured out, maybe a tablespoon or so left to fry the bean paste for a couple of minutes. The larger white ends of the scallions go in for about another minute. About a cup of the broth, soy, rice wine and sherry mix goes in, brought to a boil, stirring constantly. Then add the tofu and the rest of the scallions, along with a cornstarch slurry.
The Product
I've attempted deep fried tofu before, this was my best effort yet. The sauce was pretty thin, could have used more cornstarch. And I would have liked a bit more garlic in it, only used 2 big cloves in the paste, I think a couple more cloves thinly sliced and added in later would have been nice. Love the funky earthiness of the real deal black beans, though.
mjb.