This can be done on a non-stick skillet, cast iron, or wok.
When I began trying to make (what became) this, I wanted something familiar, savory, comforting, and easy to make in the sense that, it could be done with very little prep prior. I could grab everything from the fridge and in 30 minutes, have a meal. With the rough idea of 'fried rice’ in mind, and a desire to make it all tofu no egg, I ended up with this recipe.
In the summer, this was one of my go to meals. I was working a lot, I was excercising a lot, and I’d usually finish the dish for two on my own, returning to the pan after finishing each bowl. My dog would be like :O again?? And I’d be like yes, oki.
This recipe says to use two-day-old rice. It can be done with one, it could even be done with fresh rice, but fair warning that it won’t hit the same. If you only have fresh rice, I’d simply make the rice separately, and cook all the components the same, but then place together in a bowl and mix.
Ingredients
- A cube of fresh ass tofu. You can also prepare the tofu more beforehand if you want, but it isn’t necessary here.
- Currently, i use the 'organic sprouted tofu' from Trader Joe's. I know, k.
- One side feeds two people or one hungry person
- Two-day-old white rice
- Soy sauce, or coconut aminos
- Sesame oil (toasted or not)
- Black bean sauce
- Scallions
- Red holland peppers, about 1.5 per person. Sliced
- 1-2 Murasaki sweet potatoes for 2.
- This is the egg sub. It helps to have lots, and if sliced thinly, then they’ll reduce in size even more significantly once cooked through
- A few small garlic cloves, chopped
- Thai basil leaves
- A chili garlic oil for topping
- Optional: diced carrot, small
And as always, any similars will do to your taste. Personally I don't find the red holland peppers spicy but they can occasionally be, especially if you leave in more seed. If worried about spice levels, swap for red bell pepper for color and chop up small.
Directions
Grab your potato, tofu, sauces, pepper, garlic, and all the things but the rice, which you can take out in a bit. If you're a somewhat fast cutter, you can start the heat on your skillet now. medium heat. i have an electric stove, and i put the dial around 4.5 (there’s no numbers on my dial, so take that as you will!)
Sweet potato prep
Grab that sweet potato. i like to cut the ends of the sweet potato, because then it leaves you with a more cubed sweet potato, which you can then cut rectangles off of. Yum. okay so i cut very thin slices of sweet potato at whatever shape makes sense. They usually look like near-squares/rectangles, though. The important part is that the slices are thin. They don't need to be paper thin, just evenly thin. Okay. Cut however much potato you wanna eat. If there's 2 people, you could do anywhere from 1 to 2 potatoes (with the ends cut off).
The pan should be getting there. Set aside the cut potato. Store the remaining potato if any.
Potato.
Tofu prep
Okay. Grab the tofu, open it up, squeeze out as much liquid as you can with your hands. Cut the rectangle in half so you get even cubes. Dice those cubes. Three slices. Turn. Another three slices. Turn, another three slices. Until the cube is now a bunch of cubes. Do that to both halves of the original tofu rectangle.
Depending on how long the above took, you can get ready to throw in the potato now, or start slicing peppers and garlic.
But for the sake of giving clear instruction, throw in potato slices now, distribute evenly across the pan. Make sure they all get equal exposure to heat.
Potato on the pan, chop veggies
Chop the garlic into small ish pieces. Sometimes i slice them thinly, too, as they can be nice pops to find later.
Slice the peppers so that they’re red thin circles. Discard or keep seeds.
If you’d like more spice, keep more seeds.
Add tofu to pan/wok
Once the potato is like halfway cooked, move them to the side of the pan. Drop in tofu. No need to add additional oil (in fact you can put it away), this is where the tofu moisture comes in. I drop them in their little 9 square form like patties. Drizzle a good salt on each tofu, a good amount. Any extra on the fingers can be casually tossed to the potatos on the side. Let them sizzle for a bit, make sure the pan heat is still going strong, maybe bump up to 5ish. Then, drizzle on a bit of sesame oil and a bit of soy sauce. Really like just enough to cover the tofu and that’s it. Let that sit on its own.
After a little bit, I add in the peppers, first. I wait on the garlic as i usually chop it pretty small.
After a little bit, add garlic, and prep rice.
Rice + black bean sauce add
Mix everything, the potato, pepper, toss the tofu, garlic all together. Plop desired rice amount on top. If you have a lid, you could cover it here without mixing it in quite yet. Add maybe 2 teaspoons worth of black bean sauce to the whole thing. After the rice has started to warm, break it apart and mix everything. The sauce should have added a darker hue to it all.
Let that all cook together for a bit, && if you’re worried about overcooking it, unlikely, but you can turn down the heat to medium low.
Thai basil + final extras
After a while, wash some thai basil leaves and add them to the dish. Stir and mix again.
Let sit only for a bit, turn off heat, and serve into bowls. Add chopped scallion and a chili oil on top.
Can be done in about 20-30 minutes depending on chopping speed, heat, + comfort with LIVING ON THE EDGE ;)