I recently had someone who is a big meat-eater tell me that they’d tried some tofu and it tasted great. Naturally I didn’t believe it, but curiosity got the best of me and I tried it out for the first time. Tasting it by itself, without being prepared in any way, tofu is not impressive. It doesn’t taste like anything. I suspect it’s all about how you prepare it.

I used a recipe from Jamie Oliver and adapted that. In my usual style, I use recipes as inspiration and a guideline so the recipe wasn’t followed precisely but here’s what I did. At the end it was pretty good!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup sesame seeds and cashew nuts
• 200g tofu
• A sprinkle of cornflour
• 2 blobs of olive oil
• A dash of sesame oil
• A dash of soya sauce
• 1 tsp garlic chopped
•  1 tsp ginger chopped
• 4 spring onions with the ends cut
• some chopped chillies
• 1/2 head of broccoli cut up into strips
• 1/2 red pepper cut in strips
• 4 baby sweetcorn cut in half
• 3 tbsp sweetcorn
• 1 lime

Method:

• In a pan on medium heat fry the sesame seeds and cashew nuts. Keep an eye on them so they don’t burn, stir them continuously until they are browned.
• Put them aside in a bowl
• Cut up your tofu into cubes and dust them with the cornflour
• Add a good blob of olive oil to the pan and on a high heat fry the tofu into it looks browned and crispy
• Add the tofu to the bowl with the sesame seeds and cashew nut, mix those together
• Add another blob of olive oil to the pan and on a high heat add the broccoli and brown that for 5 minutes
• Add the rest of the veggies to the pan and mix in the ginger, garlic, chillies, a dash of soya sauce followed by a dash of sesame oil
• Stir fry for 10 minutes
• To serve, add the veggies to a bowl and top it off with the tofu and a squeeze of lime