If you’ve followed along on my ongoing efforts to create the crunchiest, most flavor-packed tofu possible, you know that I’m a fan of using cornstarch to get that crust. Last year, I found what I thought was the uber-recipe, one that calls for you to press moisture out of the tofu before marinating it in a hoisin mixture, coating it in the starch and pan-frying.
As good as that was, as soon as I saw YouTube star Maangchi’s recipe for Korean fried tofu a couple of months ago, I knew I was about to try something even better. She doesn’t press the tofu, doesn’t marinate it, but deep-fries and then glazes it. In the video, when I first saw Maangchi (an alias for Emily Kim) take a bite into the finished tofu and the crunch was not just audible but loud, I didn’t waste any time. I stopped what I was doing, placed an online order for the ingredients I didn’t have and was frying tofu for dinner within a couple of hours. How often does that happen?
If you’re not a fan of frying, you might not like the looks of this — because one of the keys to Maangchi’s technique is that you do it twice. Her choice of coating, potato starch, gives you an even crustier result than cornstarch, especially when you let it cool a bit after the first frying session and then go again. In between rounds, you make a very simple sauce out of ketchup, gochujang and rice syrup (or honey or sugar). Maangchi uses the double-fry technique and a similar sauce for her popular fried-chicken recipes, too.
By using two cups of oil in a very deep skillet (or, better yet, a Dutch oven), you can avoid much of the splattering mess. And after you’ve coated the twice-fried tofu in the sticky, spicy, sweet sauce and served it (or, let’s be honest, devoured it all yourself), just let the oil cool, then strain it for reusing.
And reuse it you will. If you’re like me, you’ll get your hands on more tofu within a matter of days, just so you can heat up the oil and fry again and again.
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