I don’t quite remember where I got this recipe, but it was the first time that I bought sweet thai chili sauce. Fool that I am, the first time that I made it I thought sweet Thai chili sauce was sriracha. We almost died from the heat of the recipe. No, you may not substitute sriracha for sweet Thai chili sauce. But if you’d like this dish a little spicier, add some additional chile flakes – like the kind you find at an old-school pizzeria next to the shaker of “parmesan cheese.”
For the Rice:
3 units rice
6 oz coconut milk (whole fat, no cheating)
big pinch of salt
Add ingredients to your rice cooker. Fill to the line with water. Close the lid and press the button. Don’t have a rice cooker? Until you get one, you’ll have to figure out how to make rice yourself. Sorry. Once the rice cooker has done it’s magic, stir the rice to distribute the coconut fat throughout the rice.
For the Tofu with Sweet Chili Sauce:
1/4 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup Asian sweet chili-garlic sauce
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons ketchup
chile flakes
1 block extra-firm tofu
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
Cut the tofu into similar-sized pieces. (I typically cut mine to 1″ x 1″ x 1/2″. This gives me two broad surfaces to brown and four smaller sides to ignore. It’s easier than trying to brown all six sides of a 1″ cube of tofu.) Place the tofu on a single layer on paper towels or a flour sack towel. Press between two weights for 10 to 30 minutes. The more water you press out, the easier it will be to brown the tofu.
Whisk together the stock, chili sauce, soy, vinegar and ketchup. Add chile flakes to taste.
Heat oil on medium-high in a nonstick pan. Tofu will stick to anything less. Trust me. Nonstick. Unwrap the tofu from the paper. Once the oil shimmers, place the tofu in a single layer in the pan and brown the bottom side. Shake the pan occasionally to make sure the tofu isn’t sticking to the pan or to each other. Flip all of the pieces over and brown the second side. Once the second side is browned, add the sauce and cover (QUICKLY!) with a lid. When the sauce hits the hot pan it splatters EVERYWHERE… so don’t make this if your mother is coming to visit and you don’t have time to clean little red drops off your white party dress and your white kitchen walls. Reduce the heat down to medium and simmer the sauce until it’s thickened, about 10 minutes. Keep shaking the pan to spread the sauce around the tofu cubes.
Serve the tofu with sauce over coconut rice.
ReLocavore: Redefining "local" 
October 6, 2012 at 9:07 am
Yes, something I can make on the stovetop! Thanks, Addi.