General Tao's Tofu

This recipe appears to be famous on vegweb.com. It sits at the top of the list of the site's most-viewed recipes--and--it also has the most reviews with a whopping 157... all raving about how awesome and delicious this dish was. Therefore, I couldn't wait to try it!

Before I go any further, this recipe did not disappoint. It is indeed awesome!

I must say, it took me way longer than the stated 30 min. prep time. It could be cuz this was my first time manuvering through the recipe, but it still takes more time than I usually put into a weeknight meal. LOL But I made it special cuz Monday nights are dinner with my BF, so I always try to impress him with my veggie cooking skills! ;)

When I make this again, I plan to pre-mix the sauce ingredients (sans water and cornstarch) prior to beginning the tofu. Thankfully, my BF didn't mind watching the tofu cook while I chopped and readied the sauce ingredients. Next time, the sauce ingredients are being made first, which will make it easier to just add the water/cornstarch in and heat it all up as the tofu is looking ready. This sauce WILL thicken, so be sure to cook it long enough so that it does thicken. And, definitely double-up on the sauce as recommended by the reviews on vegweb. You'll want plenty of this yummy sauce for this dish! So double the sauce recipe!

I also followed the recipe's advice and froze my chopped tofu the night before and let it defrost in the fridge while I was at work today. Coating the tofu in the egg-replacer/cornstarch took some time, but I was trying to make it look all pretty. Next time I'll probably speed this up by rolling several pieces of tofu in the cornstarch at the same time. I also plan to cook the tofu longer... we fried it till golden, but just golden. I think we could've fried it more till it browned a bit. We also made the mistake of adding the tofu into the sauce too soon--before the sauce thickened. While it all still tasted yummy, the tofu 'crust' did seem to soften up in the sauce, so next time the tofu won't be added to the sauce until just before serving.

I served it over jasmine rice with broccoli and red peppers.

Other than that, this recipe is AWESOME. I don't know if I've ever had Chinese food that has tasted this good. Seriously. I really haven't eaten much Chinese food since going veg. Prior to becoming veg*n, I mainly ate almond chicken when we ordered Chinese. Once I went veg, I think we dined out at a Chinese restaurant one time and I ordered some kind of noodle thing which I didn't care for. Oh, and my veg*n friend and I tried this one Chinese place that served meatless chinese dishes (think meatless sweet and sour "chicken") but I believe that restaurant may have closed. This recipe is definitely a keeper, tho. Well worth the effort!

Oh.... and did I mention this recipe was vegan? Absolutely no animal ingredients whatsoever! :-D