As a result of being vegetarian and pescatarian off-and-on throughout my adult life, I've eaten a lot of faux-meat and vegetarian dishes that mimic traditional meat dishes. It took some time, but I turned Dan onto them, too, and he came to enjoy some of them quite a bit. One that he got a craving for recently is a vegan version of Almond Fried Chicken that we've had at Teapot Restaurant on Capitol Hill.
So tonight I did my best to do a similar version, using an almond fried chicken recipe as my starting point, but replacing the chicken with a block of extra firm tofu. I served it over a bed of beautiful purple rice made by mixing jasmine rice with black forbidden rice. Of course, our version wasn't truly vegetarian, because I used the last of the chicken stock I made last week - but you could easily swap that out and make this dish vegan.
Almond Fried Tofu
1 cup flour
2 tspn baking powder
½ tspn salt
1 Tbspn oil
1 cup cold water
¼ cup raw almonds
1 package extra firm tofu
1 tspn hoisin sauce
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
2 tspn soy sauce
1 Tbspn cornstarch
1 Tbspn water
¾ cup toasted almonds*
Cut the tofu into 1/4 slices, then press with towels to remove as much water as possible. Place raw almonds in a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Make the batter by combining flour, baking powder, salt, oil, water and ground almonds. Dip the tofu into the batter, then deep fry them in 320 degree oil for about 8 minutes. In a small sauce pan, mix the hoisin sauce, chicken stock, and soy sauce. In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and water, then add to the sauce pan. Heat sauce until thickened, then pour over the fried tofu and sprinkle with toasted almonds.
*To toast raw almonds, slice and place on a baking dish in a 350 degree oven for 5-10 minutes, stirring often.
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