Mountain Pepper Tofu

A delicious spicy dish.

800 g firm tofu* Try to find quite a firm, relatively dry non-silken tofu. Softer tofus tend to fall apart.
vegetable oil for frying
cornflour to dust the tofu

150 g butter
12 small shallots 350g in total, thinly sliced. This is the French golden shallots, not spring onion-type shallots.
8 fresh red chillies fairly mild ones, thinly sliced. *Adapt this bit to your taste; remove seeds if you're concerned about heat.
12 garlic cloves crushed
3 tbsp chopped fresh root ginger
3 tbsp sweet soy sauce Also called kecap manis.
3 tbsp light soy sauce
4 tsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp caster sugar
4 tbsp coarsely crushed mountain pepperberry use a pestle and mortar or a spice grinder
16 small and thin spring onions cut into 3cm segments

Put on your rice now.
**Make the tofu crunchy.**
Cut the tofu into large cubes of about 3cm x 2cm. Toss them in cornflour and shake off the excess where possible.
Pour enough oil into a large frying pan or wok to come 5mm up the sides and heat.
Add tofu to the hot oil in small batches and fry until they have a thin golden crust.
As they are cooked, transfer them onto kitchen paper. It doesn't matter if they cool down at this stage - they'll be re-heated afterwards.
**Cook the sauces**
Remove the oil and any sediment from the pan or wok.
Put the butter in the pan/wok and melt it.
Add the shallots, chillies, garlic and ginger to the pan. Sauté on low to medium heat for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the ingredients have turned shiny and are totally soft. Watch to ensure they don't over-cook.
While they're cooking, mix the soy sauces and sugar in a small bowl and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
When the shallots, chilli and garlic are soft and shiny, add the soy sauces and sugar to the pan and stir.
Then add the crushed mountain pepperberry.
Add the tofu to the sauce and stir for about a minute, until it's warmed through.
Finally, stir in the spring onions.
Serve hot, with the steamed rice.

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