While tending to my ‘indoor’ garden last night I decided to prune the Vietnamese mint. Not wanting to waist the cuttings, and in traditional Williworld ‘we could use that’ style, I looked at my mint, then at my abundant chilli collection and decided to make a spicy concoction.
I mashed Vietnamese mint, Thai basil, red chilli, garlic, lemon juice, rock salt and sunflower oil in a pestle and mortar.
I was planning on making the sauce to store in the fridge for another day, but when I tasted it...Mmm mmm, MMMmm... it was crying out to be eaten sooner.
Now, as some of you may know, I have a bit of a love for tofu and cook with it all the time (I have found though, that there seems to be a large number of people out there that cringe at it).
So with my newly created concoction I decided to organise a fairly simple tofu dish.
Marinade diced tofu with finely chopped red onion, chilli, vietnamese mint, lemon juice, soy sauce, Massel chicken stock powder and some fish sauce and put it in the fridge to marinate over night.
Once marinated gently fry the tofu until it begins to brown and become crispy.
Steam carrot, red capsicum, spring onions etc and drizzle with lemon juice. Place veggies on a bed of rice, add the tofu and top with the fiery mint and chilli sauce. Yum!
If you typically weirded out by tofu, I think the trick to enjoying it is frying it up to get crispy edges and adding a healthy amount of flavouring. However - If you’re still not game you could easily leave it out or substitute for chicken or fish.