These crispy tofu bites take inspiration from one of our favourite Japanese dishes, Agedashi Tofu. Traditionally, tofu is simply fried in potato flour, and the real star of the dish is dashi - the broth (and we argue that the toppings help too). The dashi broth is rich, flavoursome with a hint of sweetness. Dashi is usually made with fish, but you can buy or make vegan versions. In this recipe, we’ve used one from Japan Centre, Shimaya Kelp Dashi Stock Powder. This recipe also makes use of some of your favourite Japanese ingredients and cupboard staples like tamari, mirin, seaweed flakes and tofu.
The other key to agedashi tofu is, of course, the tofu. Getting gloriously crisp, but soft tofu is crucial. You want firm or extra firm (definitely not silken) like this one from Japan Centre, House Firm Premier Tofu and you’ll then need to press out some, but not all of the liquid as you want the inside to remain soft. We livened up our crispy coating with a few extras, crushed sesame seeds, dashi stock powder and seaweed flakes—to make a furikake-like coating. For the seaweed flakes, we used what we already had indoors, but you could use something like the Mishima Takikomi Wakame Rice Seasoning Flakes. For links to some of the other staple products that we used, have a look at our post on our 5 vegan staples from earlier in the week.
There’s nothing quite as moreish as crispy fried tofu and a good dipping sauce and after you try these, we think you’ll agree.
Dipping sauce
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