The next thing of note from the past few weeks’ cooking experiments is in fact a milestone: my first happy encounter with reshaped tofu (which – however much I love tofu itself – is usually not my scene).
When I first read Cindy’s post on soy bombs, I was intrigued, but suspicious. The idea of fried ‘bombs’ reminded me of some dubious-looking potato and chicken bombs we used to get at a corner chicken shop, made of – you guessed it – mashed potato and bits of barbequed chicken, moulded into a tennis-sized ball, rolled in breadcrumbs and deep fried. This fashioning of potato and chicken into a bomb was, I’m sure, a tactic to disguise some culinary shortcoming or other in crumbed, deep-fried goodness.
Despite this memory, I started to think how good it would be to have soy bombs in my life, as a snack, burger filling, alongside salad, and made with the virtuousness of tofu: so one day we just gave these a go. Hooray – these needn’t be doubted at all, as they are tasty, relatively straightforward and totally versatile.
I won’t repeat the recipe here, as I pretty much followed the directions in Cindy’s post (as Cindy helpfully points out, it looks like the original recipe itself has a bit of lineage: for all this I am a grateful beneficiary and claim no credit). However, as my mixture still turned out a bit crumbly, I was fearful that the delicate bombs might not hold up to any frying action (let alone being rolled in flour). So, I added an egg, omitted the flour, and sprayed them with a bit of cooking spray and baked them in a hot oven for about 20-25 minutes, turning just once. And they came out great. We enjoyed them first with some sweet chilli sauce and salad in a wrap. Yum, and the leftovers were just as tasty. Worth a try, you sceptics!
7 Aug at 5:55 pm
I have one or two casualties every time I fry these – I think the peanut butter must be the crucial ingredient for binding, and potentially also for that rich flavour. I must try oven-baking them again, I think we overcooked them last time and they were a little tough.
Interesting that you’re not usually into “reshaped” tofu but like it straight up – I usually push this recipe onto people who think they don’t like tofu at all. 🙂
8 Aug at 2:49 pm
these look great – I am still hoping to try this recipe out some time so interesting to see how you did it
10 Aug at 6:46 am
Oh, that sounds like a lovely way too enjoy these bombs!
13 Aug at 11:31 am
i know cindy, it totally doesn’t make sense that i usually prefer tofu straight up. who know why? but these bombs are awesome, so thanks again for telling us about them!
thanks johanna and holler – it really is worth a try. My favourite thing about it is the peanut and tofu flavour combo, dressed with the chilli sauce – tasty!
13 Aug at 8:33 pm
I love sweet chilli sauce, I always have some at the ready in the fridge. Mmmmm 😛