Chilli Peanut Vegetable Salad with Fried Tofu
The ceiling fans are whirring at a languid pace, they seem lazy, like us, affected by the hot and steamy weather. Most nights, home delivered Thai food with a cold beer would use all the energy I can muster, but a growing pile of interesting Asian style salad recipes I’ve collected called me to consider other dinner options.
Inspired by but not limited to Simon Bryant’s recipe for Carrot and Fried Tofu Salad with Chilli Peanut Sauce from his fabulous book “Vegies,” this dish resemble Indonesian Gado Gado in so much that it features raw and steamed vegetables, tofu and boiled eggs dressed with a deep and richly flavoured peanut sauce with a punchy amount of chilli.
In the cool of the morning I steamed the brocciolini, boiled the eggs and fried the tofu. The sauce quickly came together just before serving, but it could be made a couple of days in advance and gently warmed as you prepared to serve.
In the future, I won’t limit myself to the vegetables here, bean shoots, snow pea tendrils, green beans, spring onions or chives, coriander, shaved fennel and radishes could also be used although I’d limit the selection I chose to avoid flavour confusion.
The Chilli Peanut Sauce makes a surprisingly good salad dressing. I make peanut sauce regularly over the summer months to serve with satays from the BBQ, never before have I thought it would have an alternate use. My old recipe was good, this one is fabulous and worthy of it’s own post.
Chilli Peanut Vegetable Salad with Fried Tofu
400g block firm tofu
500ml peanut oil for deep frying
4 eggs
1 bunch of brocciolini
1 large carrot
1/2 red capsicum
1 Lebanese cucumber
1 cup coarsely shredded wombok
1 cup coarsely shredded iceberg lettuce
1 cup loosely packed mint leaves
Wedges of fresh lime to serve
Tear the tofu into bite sized pieces and leave to drain on paper towels while you heat the oil to 180C. Deep fry the tofu in small batches until deeply golden, about 5 minutes. Set the tofu aside on kitchen paper to drain.
Boil the eggs until only just firm, about 4 minutes. Refresh in iced water then peel and set aside.
Peel the stem ends of the brocciolini, then cook for 2 minutes in boiling water. Refresh in iced water, then leave to drain.
Cut the cucumber lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and discard. Slice the cucumber into fine slices.
Cut the carrot and red capsicum into fine julienne.
Wash and spin dry the leafy greens.
Toss the vegetables together then arrange on serving plates.
Toss the tofu in 2 tablespoons of the chilli peanut sauce then scatter it over the vegetables.
Break the eggs in half and add to the plate.
Drizzle the salad generously with peanut chilli sauce.
Serve with wedges of lime.
Serves 4
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21 comments on “Chilli Peanut Vegetable Salad with Fried Tofu”
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Please Pass the Recipe by Sandra Gay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Please Pass the Recipe 
Reblogged this on Chef Ceaser.
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I can well imagine how tasty this salad must be with temps as high as they are in your area. Better still, you needn’t heat up your kitchen preparing it. I do like the sound of your chilli peanut sauce. I thought I’d pinned it when I first read that post but I’ve pinned it just now. I don’t want to lose track of it.
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Thanks John, the sauce is seriously good, the salad seemed a bit of an anti climax in comparison, but it’s perfect summer food
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Looks wonderful. And I wouldn’t let our current bitterly cold weather stop me!
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Actually i thought it would be a good salad to serve the tofu, egg and sauce warm with steamed Asian greens. Enjoy, and keep warm
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Sandra, this manages to look really wonderful and appetising. A good trick given that it is hovering at around 0ºC here at present. Nice.
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Thanks Conor, keep warm ….
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One reminder re Simon Bryant may have gone by in the Yuletide rush – two re his book will NOT!! Fabulous recipe and this time round I shall be paying more attention to its provenance . . . Hate to tell you we are back into the twenties for at least four days . . . did not like 43 C yesterday !!!!
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The weather is more fickle than ever this summer, i have no doubts about climate change. Enjoy Bryants book when it comes your way, and the salad
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Love the sauce! Love the dish!
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Thanks Susan, nice to see you at PPTR
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Good use of your sauce. This salad looks incredible, the boys would devour it rather quickly.
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Thanks, I was really happy about how well the flavours and textures went together
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Time to make gado- gado again. The chilli peanut suace is not listed- I am always on the hunt for a new one to try- is it the old one from a previous post that you are using here?
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The previous post was the very excellent sauce, there was a link in the recipe but I’ll go and check right now and make sure it’s not dropped off. Enjoy…
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I love Gado-Gado and reckon peanut sauce could make old shoe leather taste good! Thanks for the inspiration Sandra.
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You’re welcome Ardys!
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I have to try this. Thanks for sharing.
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You’re welcome Rupali, enjoy……
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Looks very yummy. Thanks Sandra.
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Nice to hear from you Pam, yes it’s a great salad, having it again tonight…
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