Salt and Pepper Things...

This was part of a summer-y Asian inspired meal I put together recently - including sang choi bow and beautiful spicy plum sauce.

Salt and Pepper Things

Ingredients

Extra firm tofu, frozen, thawed, defrosted and pressed – cut into 1cm thick triangles
Eggplant, cut into 1cm square logs
Cornflour
Seasoning Salt to taste (I use Herbamare)
White Pepper to taste
Vegetable oil for deep frying

Method

This is an incredibly simple yet incredibly tasty recipe.

Combine the cornflour, salt and pepper. I use white pepper because it’s got a lovely colour, it’s very strongly flavoured, and it has the right consistency to mix into the cornflour.

Heat the oil in a deep saucepan over a medium high heat.

Dry the tofu and eggplant. Using a sieve, dust the individual pieces with the cornflour mix – leave the eggplants until last, as the salt in the cornflour can cause moisture to leak from the eggplants, making everything a bit gloopy.

You may need to do a couple of dustings, until the tofu and eggplant pieces are thoroughly covered. Shake off excess cornflour (you should be able to see through it to the surface of the tofu and eggplant) and drop into the oil.

Deep fry until golden and crisp, and put onto paper towels to drain off the excess oil.

Serve as part of rice paper rolls, or with lettuce leaves, or with steamed rice and plum sauce.