Air Fryer Edition: Mongolian Tofu

OAO and I love Mongolian Beef — it is one of our go to take out meals in Seattle and Toronto. Actually more in Seattle — can I get a delivery from Kobe Bellevue Restaurant please? In lieu of our infamous order, I wanted to attempt Mongolian Tofu with the recipe inspired from The Woks of Life. The end result did not disappoint, albeit looking forward to making Mongolian Beef one of these days…

Recipe adapted from — The Woks of Life…

Mongolian Beef: One of Our Most Popular Recipes! | The Woks of Life

Start with 1 block of firm tofu.

Using a heavy object press the tofu down for about 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, cut the tofu into cube sized blocks and transfer to a bowl.

Add 1tsp salt and 1 tsp pepper. Shake it up to coat well. (See notes below)*

Place inside an air fryer. Air fry at 380oC for 10 minutes. Shake the air fryer basket for even cooking. Back into the air fryer for 10 more minutes.

Meanwhile get these items ready: Julienne a thumb size piece of ginger, finely chop 4 cloves of garlic, get 3 dried red chilies (break in half), and some green onions.

Can I take a moment to admire my upcoming homegrown green onions…ok maybe my mom does all the watering, but still I shared the idea from Instagram first.

Back to ingredients. I am also using homemade vegetable stock. Added a bunch of leftover celery stalks (I freeze the “unwanted pieces” anytime I cut celery so I can use it for vegetable stock later), onion peels, garlic peels, ginger peels, 1 bay leaf to water. If you don’t have homemade vegetable stock, you can use store brought stock or water.

After 20 minutes, tofu should look like this.

In a pan, heat 1 tbsp oil. Fry the ginger pieces for about 30 seconds.

Add garlic and dried red chilies. Don’t forget to break the dried red chilies in half. Fry for 30 seconds.

Add 3 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sugar (I used swerve — but you can use brown sugar, or honey), and 1 cup of vegetable stock. Bring it to a boil.

Reduce the liquid. This is after 5 minutes.

This is after 10 minutes. (See notes below)**

Add broccoli. Coat it with the sauce.

Add tofu. Coat it with the sauce.

Finish off by adding green onions.

Sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds and voila.

Weeknight/Weekend meals ready in 20 minutes.

I hope you give this dish a try. Tofu was crispy on the outside and soft inside. The sauce was a little spicier than I thought— please see the notes below. Nevertheless, I am definitely adding this dish to my weeknight 20 minute meals.😀

With extra heat,

A, Ben.

Notes:

• (*) You can avoid adding pepper to tofu before air frying it. Mom made a comment that it unnecessarily added extra heat to the dish and I agree.
• (**) I would only add 1/4 or 1/2 cup of vegetable stock or water instead of 1 cup. If you add less amount, the reduction process will be faster. We noticed the taste of ginger, garlic, and dried chilies incorporated well when the liquid got reduced. Because of that, the dish was a little bit more spicy than I imagined. Another faster way to reduce the liquid is to use a thickening agent (ex: cornstarch).