Crispy Teriyaki Tofu with Chinese Pancake

Press the tofu. Place a tea bowl over a chopping board, place the tofu block on top and add weight. We are doing this to remove some of the moisture from the tofu making it easier to brown when we go to cook it.

First lets make plum sauce. Chop plums in half and twist to remove the stone. Add to blender along with the rest of the ingredients. Blend till smooth. Pour into a saucepan and bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and leave to simmer for 10 mins stirring occasionally allowing the sauce to thicken and reduce and to cook off the raw onion and ginger flavor.

While plum sauce reduces and cooks off let’s make the teriyaki sauce. Wash and rinse the blender and let’s make a simplified teriyaki sauce. Add all ingredients to a high speed blender and blend till smooth. Note that if you don’t have a high speed blender chop the lemongrass, garlic and ginger super fine. Pour into a jug and put aside. Remove the plum sauce from the heat and put aside.

Now it’s time to make our pancakes. In a blender add all ingredients and blend till smooth. Don’t worry if the batter is quite loose and runny.

Time to make tofu. Press your firm tofu to remove some of the moisture making it easier to brown our tofu. Chop block in half.

Heat up a nonstick frying pan till super hot. Add 2 tablespoons of oil and cook each side until it is nicely and evenly browned. Remove from the pan and cut into thin slices at a slight angle. Put half it back in the pan take our teriyaki sauce and add half to the pan and enjoy the sizzle. turn the tofu so that all sides of the tofu are glazed and fully imparted with flavor so that they become flavor bombs.

Repeat with the remaining tofu and the remaining teriyaki sauce. Once cooked remove the tofu.

Take the head of pak choi, remove the base and add 4 long stalks to the pan along with 4 tbsp of water (to deglaze) using your wooden spoon, scrape any flavour that is stuck to the bottom of the pan. If this starts to evaporate too quickly just add a little more water. Turn on the heat and cook until the pak choi is nice and soft but still maintains its green colour.

Pancake time. Take a clean non-stick frying pan and put on high heat. Once hot reduce the heat to a medium heat and add 1 tbsp oil. Pour enough batter to make a thin crepe-like pancake. When the bubbles start to form and the top starts to dry out turn the pancake and cook the other side till starts to brown and golden. Repeat with the rest of the batter, you will get 6 about pancakes.

To plate up -put a pancake on a plate, add a generous serving of plum sauce, slice the pak choi, spring onions and carrots thinly and at and angle and sprinkle on top of the plum sauce, add some tofu (approx ? of it). The last addition is to finely slice a red chilli and sprinkle on top along with some sesame seeds.

Repeat with the other pancakes and enjoy!