Vietnamese Sweet and Sour Tofu

We are nearing the end of our 30 day Culinary journey across the globe!This has been a very tasty journey so far and we have tasted food across so many countries!And today we are visiting Vietnam.

I made a Vietnamese Red rice and a sweet and sour Tofu that go so well together. On another note, this happens to be my 1500th post!

Some interesting facts on Vietnam…

• Officially it is called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
• The famous Vietnam war is the longest war ever from 1959 – 30th April, 1975!
• This country is the largest exporter of cashews and black pepper in the world.
• Football is a popular sport here.
• Vietnam has attained 94% literacy!
• Even today most of the schools use traditional gongs to ring in the school timings!
• Their language has 6 tones and each one of them give a different meaning to the word!
• It has the world’s lowest unemployment rate among the developing countries.

The cuisine

• It is a mixture of Chinese and Thai style of cooking and is considered to be one of the healthiest in the world.
• Traditionally, a dish has to have all the tastes in a single dish – sweet, sour, spiciness,bitter and saltiness
• They follow the yin – Yang balance.The ‘cold’ foods are cooked with ‘hot foods’.For example -duck is considered cooling so it is cooked with ‘hot’ ginger.
• The cuisine uses a lot of herbs, spices and aromatics
• Almost all the dairy based beverages use condensed milk instead of milk.

I used:
Adapted from Nita Mehta’s – Taste of Asia-Vegetarian,cookbook

Tofu – 1 block
Button mushrooms – 10 numbers
Colored bell pepper- 1/2 cup cut into strips
Spring onion-3 stalks , chopped, green and white separated
Oil-1 teaspoon

For the marinade 

Soy sauce- 2 tablespoons
Tomato sauce- 2 tablespoons
Vinegar – 1 teaspoon
Salt-1/2 teaspoon
Sugar- 1 teaspoon
Crushed garlic-1 teaspoon
Crushed ginger- 1 teaspoon
Black pepper powder- 1 teaspoon
Water – a little

Cube the tofu and put it in a vessel. Add all the ingredients mentioned under marinade and mix. If its too thick, add a little water to dilute and coat the tofu cubes.Mix well and let it marinate for atleast 4 hours.I let it sit for almost a day in the fridge.

Heat oil in a pan and add the spring onion white. Saute for a minute and add the colored bell pepper and chopped mushroom.As the mushrooms get cooked, the mixture will turn a bit watery due to the moisture from the mushroom. Let it cook ton high heat till the moisture has evaporated fully. Add the marinated tofu cubed along with the remaining marinade if any from the bowl.Saute for a couple of minutes. Add a little salt, spring onion greens and remove from heat. Mix and the curry is ready to be served.

Serve garnished with spring onion greens.

Note:

• You can use paneer instead of tofu.
• The more the tofu marinates the better it will taste. So marinate the tofu and put it in the fridge till you are ready.I made it after almost a day.But don’t let it sit for too long either.Anywhere between 4 – 24 hours should be ok.