Tofu Sukiyaki

Bear with me, because this one is highly adapted. The original recipe is made with classic Japanese ingredients like mirin, sake and dashi soup that you probably don’t have at the ready or feel like having massive amounts of left over in your pantry. But I’ve made this one a few times now with my go-to substitutes, and I’m quite confident with the results. Now it’s you’re turn …

[Prep: 15min / Cook: 15min]

– glass noodles (as desired)
– 1 Tbs white wine
– 2 tsp brown sugar
– 1 Tbs Vodka
– 1 Tbs soy sauce
– vegetable or fish stock cube
– 1/2 cup water
– 1 block (about 8oz or 250g) firm tofu
– handful of shiitake mushrooms
– 1 large carrot
– 3-4 green onion shoots
– about 1/4 of a head of white cabbage
– 1 cup bean sprouts
– vegetable oil

1. Boil the glass noodles as per package instructions.
2. Over low heat, bring the wine, brown sugar, vodka, soy sauce, soup powder and water to a boil. Remove from heat once boiling.
3. Meanwhile, cut the tofu into bite-sized cubes and slice the mushrooms, carrots, onion and cabbage.
4. Heat the oil in a [very] large frying pan or wok, add the tofu and stir-fry over high heat until the tofu is lightly ‘browned’.
5. Add all the mushrooms, vegetables and bean sprouts. Stir fry for about 5 minutes until the vegetables start to soften.
6. Drain the noodles and mix them into the stir-fry.
7. Top with the sauce to serve.
8. Ready to eat!

[Serves 2]

Recipe adapted from Beef and Tofu Sukiyaki in fresh & simple

• You absolutely must have firm tofu. Soft or ‘silken’ tofu, though it is often referred to as ‘firm’ on the packaging will not fry properly and will come out completely different. Firm tofu comes in heavy, slightly wrinkly blocks and should be in the refrigerated ‘vegetarian’ section of the meat cases.
• Be sure to rinse the bean sprouts thoroughly. They’re known to be a bit dirty.
• Glass noodles are pretty easy to find in your international foods/Asian foods or instant noodle sections. They usually look white in the package, but turn translucent when cooked. You can try substituting other noodles or rice, but it just won’t be the same.

Variations

• If you’d like some more color in this dish, go crazy with the vegetables. I’ve made it with snap peas, baby corn, broccoli, red cabbage … anything you can stir-fry.
• Mixing up your mushrooms can be fun too. I prefer to make this with a combination of shiitake, enoki and oyster mushrooms.
• If you find the flavors a bit delicate and bland, either make a stronger sauce with more soy sauce and sugar or add a dash of chili flakes.
• I’ve also made this with pre-flavored tofu. This proved really interesting, but just be mindful of how the tofu flavorings may or may not go with the sauce because you may need to forgo it.
• What are the original ingredients? White wine + 1 tsp brown sugar = mirin. Vodka = sake. Soup stock = dashi soup stock.