Fish and Tofu Stir Fry

Today I was craving for some Chinese food. Particularly a fish dish called "Salt and Pepper fish filet." It is crispy fried fish filets with spices, garlic, and ginger and it is flavor city. However, I'm broke and am trying very hard not to spend money on going out to eat. So I decided to throw some of those Costco tilapia filets into a stir fry. I also had some firm tofu on hand that I wanted to throw in as well. I did a technique that JP from work suggested, by squishing as much of the water from the tofu as I could and then "dry frying" the slices to get them somewhat crispy. It worked pretty well, actually. It kind of reminded me of the tofu skins that you might get at a Korean restaurant.

Need:
firm tofu
panko crusted tilapia filets from Costco, baked
brussel sprouts, halved
sliced carrots
sliced green onions
3 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
3 tbsp of oyster sauce
2 tbsp of soy sauce
drop of sesame oil
2 tbsp of rice wine
a little water
a little cornstarch
black pepper
fresh ginger slices (I've run out, so I just used a little dried ginger powder in my stir fry sauce)

 

Slice tofu and lay on a towel, then cover with another towel and a cookie sheet. Weigh this down with a heavy pot.

 

Like so. Do this for at least 10 minutes.

 

Add tofu to a dry, heated pan and toast, pressing down with a spatula to continue to remove as much water as possible.

 

Stir together oyster sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine, black pepper, and ginger powder (if you're using ginger powder).

 

Flip tofu, continue pressing with the spatula.

 

Add your sliced brussel sprouts and carrots to some boiling water and boil for 3-5 minutes. We still want a little crunch to these. Then drain.

 

Cut finished tofu into bite-sized slices.

 

Cut up cooked fish filets. Like my new silpat? I'm loving them!!! I also made oatmeal peanut butter and jelly thumbprint cookies right before this. And they came out awesome (not my recipe, so I'm not sharing, but I found it on foodgawker.com).

 

In the same pan where you toasted the tofu, add about 1 tbsp of vegetable oil and your aromatics. That's ginger and green onion and fry for about 1 minute.

 

Add drained veggies to the pan and stir fry for about 2-3 minutes.

 

Add tofu and fish filet and stir fry. Then add the sauce and if you'd like the sauce a little thicker, make a corn starch and water slurry and add to the stir fry.

 

Enjoy with a bowl of rice and some hot sauce.

 

Don't lie, you wish you were eating this right now, huh?