What makes this dish special?
This is fried tofu that tastes similar to fried chicken!
I love the playfulness of this dish – the firm tofu is cut into chicken drumstick shapes, coated in a flour dredge and buttermilk solution, before deep fried.
The finishing magical touch is brushing chicken fat onto the fried tofu, to give it a real fried chicken taste.
If you’re after a vegetarian version of this recipe, simply omit the chicken fat. You can replace it with homemade scallion oil for extra umami.
The recipe starts with pickling some veggies. I used red onion and capsicum as that was what I had on hand.
As this pickling takes time, start with this step first. The pickled veggies help cut through the greasy fried tofu.
But you can pickle any veggies you like, such as cucumber and carrots!
We also coat the tofu in buttermilk before deep frying. I didn’t have buttermilk, so I used regular milk with a bit of vinegar.
A key part to making this taste like fried chicken is using chicken oil.
I used chicken wings because it is quite fatty and a lot of oil comes out of it when you cook it. But you can use any cut of chicken that is fatty – so avoid lean chicken breast or chicken tenderloin.
Another touch to elevating this fried tofu dish is by sprinkling some MSG into the chicken oil while it’s hot.
I promise this tastes AMAZING. You have to try it! It reminds me of KFC.
Use extra firm tofu, not soft tofu, as this needs to hold its shape while deep frying.
You can cut the tofu into a drumstick shape for the novelty factor.
Deep fry the tofu until the outside is golden.
Then generously brush the chicken oil + MSG onto the tofu. This will smell amazing!
Assemble the dish with your pickled veggies, dill and lemon slice.
Enjoy!
Kentucky Fried Tofu
Ingredients
Method
- Heat up the pickle solution in a saucepan until dissolved
- Add chopped red onions and capsicum into a jar then pour over the heated pickle solution and let it sit for 30mins.
- In a fry pan, add oil and sear the chicken wings on medium heat for 25mins, or until it’s fully cooked
- Extract the chicken oil into a bowl, immediately sprinkle with MSG. Set aside.
- Cut the extra firm tofu into a chicken drumstick shape
- Soak the tofu pieces in buttermilk solution for 10mins
- Coat the marinated tofu in the batter, then quickly dip it back into the buttermilk and coat in the flour mixture again (i.e. double coating the tofu)
- Shallow fry for 3-4mins until tofu is golden brown
- Brush the chicken fat onto the fried tofu
- Serve the fried tofu with pickled veggies and dill. Enjoy!
