Last week I made the Panfried Tofu with Garlic and Black Bean Sauce recipe from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook.

This is the same tofu technique as simpe panfried tofu with soy-garlic sauce. With that recipe, I had four problems with the tofu: the boiling water method didn’t seem to dry the tofu surface like Kenji describes, overcrowding in the wok, the tofu wasn’t seasoned, and the tofu was mostly crunchy while I expected a crispy exterior with a soft interior.

For this recipe I sliced the tofu a little thicker to try and get more texture contrast, dried half of the tofu with Kenji’s boiling water method and half between two pieces of paper towels, seasoned the tofu with salt, and then I panfried in two batches instead of one. The boiling water method still needed a paper towel blotting before panfrying, like with the last recipe.

I did a triangle taste test for Megan with the two drying techniques. She was able to correctly identify the differently dried tofu, and preferred the paper-towel dried tofu.

After the tofu is fried, garlic, ginger, scallions, and Chinese fermented black beans are briefly stir fried until fragrant. Shaoxing wine, light and dark soy sauces, water, and sugar are added followed by a bit of cornstarch slurry. This is briefly cooked until thickened and then the panfried tofu is tossed in. I found the sauce quickly thickened leaving the final dish with more of a coating than a sauce.

This was pretty good. Panfrying in two batches was a definite win, and my other changes to the tofu probably helped, but also tossing the tofu with the sauce helped with the other issues by flavoring and softening it.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.