Once You Try This Tofu Technique, You'll Never Stop Making It

Hi! Hello! So I recently discovered a super fun technique for transforming tofu into crispy, chewy, meaty perfection. I'm going to show you exactly how to make it in this tofu shawarma bowl. It's loaded with rice, pickled and fresh vegetables, and a luxurious tahini sauce. You can get the full written recipe at New York Times Cooking and I'll share later in the video how you can access that for free. But for now, let's get cooking. Before we get to the tofu, I want to start by pickling our onions so they have time to pickle. And we're going to thinly slice one half of a medium red onion. Once you've got your onions in a shallow bowl, we're going to season them with just a couple pinches of kosher salt, a pinch of organic cane sugar, and some sumac. If you've never cooked with sumac before, you are in for a treat. It is a lovely tart spice that has the acidity of lemon almost, but with a fruitier vibe. And it's used in a lot of Middle Eastern cuisines. If you don't have sumac or don't want to go get it, you can just use like a tablespoon of lemon zest for a different... ignore the mess... for a different flavor profile. Now for our pickling liquid, instead of your standard vinegar, we're going to be using lemon juice. Three tablespoons of that. These are going to add a really lovely zippy tang and freshness to our shawarma bowl. And you can just let these macerate and hang out while you make everything else. If you have a chance, you can give them a quick toss every 10 minutes or so. Moving on to our tofu, I've got a block of super firm tofu. This is a 16 ounce block, but if yours is a little bit less than that, totally fine. And there's no need to press it. I just drained it and patted it dry with a towel. Now the technique here is to slice the tofu crosswise about as thinly as you can. It's about the thickness of three stacked quarters or two if you get them really thinly sliced. By slicing the tofu so thinly, we are creating a lot more surface area relative to the overall volume of the tofu. And that means we'll get crispiness and chewiness in every little bite. And the reason we're using super firm tofu is because, as you can see, it is sturdy enough to withstand thin slicing. But if you can't find it, you can use extra firm tofu. I have made this recipe with it, but you do need to press it for at least 20 minutes to get out a lot of the excess moisture. Once you get to the end, it becomes a little tricky to slice it thinly. Once you've got your tofu sliced, it's time to add some flavor. We're going to start with a generous tablespoon of soy sauce. A bit of a strange ingredient in a shawarma, admittedly, but tofu, unlike meat, doesn't have any natural umami. So we're going to infuse it very easily with the soy sauce and it's going to give it a delicious savory saltiness. And if you're gluten-free, just be sure to use tamari or a gluten-free soy sauce. Some fresh cracked black pepper. And then just gently toss with your hands to ensure the tofu is coated. And the reason I'm doing this on a sheet pan is because I have plenty of surface area to work with. If you were to try to toss this in a bowl, you'd probably just like mash up and break up all the tofu. Now we're going add in some cornstarch, which will give our tofu a nice crispy coating. But instead of just like dumping it all over the tofu, I'm going to add it to a fine mesh sieve and dust it all over so it gets more evenly coated. Kind of like if you were dusting a cake with powdered sugar. I'm doing a tablespoon and a half of cornstarch on the top layer and then we'll flip the tofu and do it on the second side again. It's kind of like a musical instrument. All right, our tofu has been adequately seasoned so now it is time to start cooking. To get our tofu nice and crispy and chewy but still retaining some moisture, the best method is to pan fry it. So you're going to grab a 12-inch large skillet. I prefer to use non-stick for this recipe just because it won't stick at all. It's very easy. And we're going to heat it to medium high. Add a tablespoon and a half of olive oil or any cooking oil you like. And let that heat up for about two minutes until it's nice and shimmering. And then you want to add about half of the tofu. You won't be able to fit it all in one batch. And spread it out as best you can. It won't be perfect. You will have a little bit of overlap which is fine but you don't want too much overlap. And then I kind of like to shake the pan a little bit just to get the oil spread out and to get even browning as it cooks. Once you have everything spread out you can let this cook undisturbed for four to five minutes or until it is golden brown and crisp on the bottom. Now you're going to grab a wide spatula and use it to flip the tofu. Some pieces will stick together because of the cornstarch. Look at that. Oh yeah. But it actually makes it a lot easier to flip and you can always pull them apart later. And the second side will cook faster probably just two to three minutes. Now take a wire rack and just put it over your dirty sheet pan. And we're going to transfer the tofu on top of the wire rack. It'll get rid of that excess oil and it'll also help the tofu crisp up more. We'll add our second batch. And since this doesn't need to be flipped for at least five minutes I'm going to use that time to make our tahini sauce which is pretty classic with shawarma. But since we've got a bit of a full house over here I'm going to head over to that part of the kitchen and make the sauce there. You're going to start by adding a third of a cup of tahini to a bowl. Just make sure that it is well stirred or a runny variety like this. Squeeze in two tablespoons of fresh lemon juice. A teaspoon of sugar just to balance the slight bitterness of tahini. Black pepper and salt to season of course. And two tablespoons of ice water. The water in general will help us get a sauce like consistency but the ice water specifically helps to give tahini this luscious fluffy texture. When your second batch of tofu is done you can turn the heat to low and add back all of the tofu from the first batch. And now for the shawarma part we're going to sprinkle over four teaspoons of a shawarma spice blend. And I'm using a store-bought version just to keep things convenient but I've also included a homemade shawarma spice blend in the written recipe if you're interested. And then you're going to take a spatula and just gently toss everything for about 30 seconds or until the tofu is nicely coated in the spices. And let me tell you it smells phenomenal. And we'll just let the tofu hang out here to further crisp up while we prepare the rest of our bowl. Once you have this technique in your rotation you can kind of use any spice blend you like. So if you wanted to do an Indian thandari spice blend you could pair the tofu with some raita and naan or you could do a Mexican spice blend and put it in a burrito bowl. So lots of options. We've got our tofu, our tahini sauce, our pickled vegetables. Now we just need some fresh vegetables to round out our bowl. And you can get creative here. Use whatever you like or have on hand but my personal go-to's are cherry tomatoes and Persian cucumbers because they require very little prep and they're delicious. You can keep your smaller cherry tomatoes whole. If you've got any big ones I just like to slice them in half. You can slice the cucumbers however you like. I like to do them unbiased. You could also do half moons. You could julienne it. Whatever you like. All right I'm going to share in just a second how you can get today's recipe for free no paywall. But first let's assemble all this deliciousness. I'm starting with some basmati rice that I just had left over in my fridge and I reheated. But if you want to do whole grains you could do quinoa or farro. Grab some of our tofu shawarma, the fresh vegetables, those colors. And I like to take a little bit of the pickling liquid and spoon it directly on the rice and the vegetables just to give them a little extra flavor. But I also prefer things really tart so if you don't you might want to skip that. Get some of these gorgeous sumac onions on here. You can see how the acidity has made them bright pink. Nature is very cool like that. If your tahini sauce has been sitting out it's gonna thicken quite a bit so just add a little more water or lemon juice if you think it needs it. And then some fresh mint. Just gonna tear it with your hands. It's gonna bruise up the flavor compounds. It really takes this shawarma bowl over the top. The tofu is so chewy and crispy at the same time. It's kind of like a jerky if that makes sense and it goes so well with the rest of the toppings. You can get the full written recipe at New York Times Cooking in one of two ways. Scan this QR code. It'll take you right there. Or click the link in the description box below the video. I've left a gift link there for you. Thanks so much for watching. Bye!