Chilli tofu gravy, an Indo-Chinese dish, prepared with tofu, onion, capsicum, and spicy sauce. It is quite a simple recipe, but worth trying. Initial days, I hated any recipe prepared with tofu because of its pungent smell. Nowadays I started loving it because I learned how to cook tasty dishes with tofu. You can always replace the tofu with paneer. You may serve chilli tofu gravy with some fried rice of your choice.

Ingredients:

Serves 4 to 5

For tofu fry:

• 1 pack – Extra firm tofu (around 350 gram)
• 3 to 4 tbsp – Corn flour
• 3 to 4 tbsp – Maida flour
• Salt to taste
• Oil for deep frying

For gravy:

• 1 tbsp – Oil
• 1 small – Onion (chopped into cubes)
• 1 medium – Capsicum (chopped into cubes)
• 1/2 tsp – Garlic chopped
• 1/2 tsp – Ginger chopped
• 1 no – Green chilli chopped (optional)
• 1 tsp – Corn flour
• 1 tbsp – Soy sauce ( I used light )
• 1 to 2 tbsp – Tomato sauce (tomato ketchup)
• 1 to 1 1/2 tsp – Chilli garlic sauce ( sriracha sauce)
• 1/4 cup – Spring onion chopped
• Salt as needed

Preparation method:

Making of tofu fry:

1. Take a mixing bowl, add maida, corn flour, and salt, mix well to form a thick batter (like bajji batter) to coat Tofu. Batter should not be too thick or too thin.
2. Now add tofu to the batter and then deep fried them in hot oil until they are slightly golden brown in color. Drain in paper towel to remove excess oil, set aside.

Making of chilli tofu gravy:

1. Mix corn flour in a 1/4 cup of water and set it aside.
2. Heat oil in a pan, add ginger, garlic, green chillies chopped, saute for few seconds. Followed by chopped onion, capsicum and half of spring onion, once again saute for few seconds.
3. Take a small mixing bowl, add soy sauce, tomato ketchup and chilli garlic sauce or chilli sauce, mix well and add it to the onion mixture along with little salt, saute for few seconds. Add 1 cup of water and bring it to boil.
4. Add corn flour mixture and once again cook until you see sauce is slightly thick and glaze. Now add fried tofu, mix well everything and continued to cook over high flame for few minutes until tofu absorbs the gravy. Finally garnish with remaining spring onion and serve hot with any fried rice of your choice.

Notes:

• I used chilli garlic sauce in this recipe instead of green chilli sauce.
• Do not over crowd while deep frying tofu.
• You can also add a tsp of vinegar or lemon juice in this recipe.
• You can also shallow fry tofu cubes instead of deep-frying them to reduce the calories of this dish.
• The batter should be thick enough to coat the tofu cubes easily. Not too thick.