Honey Sesame Tofu Puffs

Raise your hand if you crave home cooked food while on vacation.

Hi! Have You Eaten Yet? I hope you have, but if you haven’t yet, here’s a new recipe from my kitchen to yours that I hope you’ll love! For more homestyle recipes, you can pre-order my next cookbook, Chinese Enough!

I’m finally back home, typing away in the kitchen with Olive napping within a warm sunbeam, after about 2 weeks in Copenhagen and a few days in Amsterdam. It was such a lovely trip where we got to spend some time with friends, up our daily step counts, and eat a tremendous amount of good food. My biggest takeaways from the trip are that Danish hot dogs might just be the best ever, sea buckthorns have high potential to be the next trendy flavor, and that maybe I need to open a bakery/dim sum cafe/beer bar (noting this as the first time I’m typing this dream into existence). I’m getting some film developed tomorrow and will post a round up of all our favorite places for food, drinks, and memorable sights very soon!

While I’m traveling for a slightly extended period of time, two things happen to me. (1) After about 5 days of eating, in this case mostly Scandinavian food, I start deeply craving rice or some semblance of Chinese food (a girl can only eat so much herring and rye bread). This is a problem I used to associate with my traveling with my parents but I guess I’m just turning into them! At Jatak in Copenhagen, we got a few bites that reminded me of the comforts of Cantonese Food and then on our second night in Amsterdam we found a Chinese restaurant that was surprisingly good (especially the wonton noodle soup) and my craving for Chinese food was satisfied for at least the rest of the trip. (2) Despite being on vacation, I start missing being in the kitchen. I feel so inspired while I’m traveling and then get a little antsy to get back to work in the kitchen. The desire to relax and then to create is a vicious cycle! If anyones knows the secret to having a truly relaxing vacation please let me know.

So now I’m back in the kitchen, fending off jetlag, and scheming what recipes I want to test first. A dau fu fa (tofu pudding) with rhubarb syrup is on my mind and so is an epic sandwich with roast pork, pickled gai lan, and black bean and garlic mayo. Also… just a really good waffle recipe. I was thinking how a mochi oatmeal waffle would be so good, but it could also be terrible (would be to too chewy?). Only testing will tell!

This week’s recipe is a meal I craved during the entirety of our trip. Honey Sesame Tofu Puffs was the last thing I made before our trip and I’ll be making it for dinner again tonight. The recipe takes about 15 minutes to make if you’re going at a leisurely pace and the sauce is simply perfect. The sauce is heavy on the honey, but balanced with soy, sesame oil, and vinegar. It reduces in the pan for a few minutes to caramelize and deepen the honey flavor which and helps it no taste cloyingly sweet. It’s perfect. This recipe is a reason to add tofu puffs to your weekly grocery list for a truly effortless meal.

My love for tofu is endless, but I’ve been focusing on exploring recipes using other forms of tofu. At a typical grocery store you can find blocks of extra firm, firm, medium, soft and silken tofu. But the world of tofu is much grander. There’s delightfully airy tofu puffs, dense and chewy pressed tofu, thin layer of beancurd, and custard-like free form tofu just to name a few. I very much enjoyed reading all about the seven types of douhua from Chengdu to Kunming in Hannah Che’s newsletter this week if you’re curious!

I almost always have a few packages of tofu puffs in my fridge or freezer and I can thankfully buy them at my local 99 Ranch and Berkeley Bowl. They are cubes of tofu that are fried quickly at a high temperature so they get a crispy crust and expand allowing for a spongey interior. With tofu puffs you don’t have to press them as you would with a block of regular tofu. You simply open the bag and add them to a soup, braise or stir-fry. In a soup or braise they quite literally soak up the broth and flavor of the dish like a sponge. In a stir-fry it only takes a few moments to coat them in your sauce and dinner is ready in a blink. Seriously, such a low maintenance ingredient and good source of protein! Fingers-crossed we get to see the tofu section at conventional grocery stores take up more space.

If you want to make this recipe but don’t have access to tofu puffs you can make a double batch of my oven baked tofu from this recipe and toss them in the sauce!

Honey Sesame Tofu Puffs

Serves 4

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1/3 cup honey

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp apple cider or rice vinegar

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1/4 tsp white pepper

3/4 cup water

1 tbsp cornstarch

2 5.6oz packages of tofu puffs

1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

1. In a medium bowl, mix to combine honey, soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, red pepper flakes, and white pepper. In another small bowl mix to combine water and cornstarch.

2. Heat a large pan over medium heat. Add the sauce and stir constantly until slightly reduced and the initial bubbles subside, 2 to 3 minutes. Give the bowl of water and cornstarch a quick stir and then pour in the cornstarch slurry. Continue to stir until the sauce thickens, it should look glossy and leave a trail when you stir.

3. Add the tofu puffs and toss to coat in the sauce. Add the sesame seeds and toss again. Serve the tofu puffs with some steamed rice and vegetables of your choice!