Hi!

As I mentioned in my last post, I bought an air fryer on sale. What is an air fryer, you ask? Well, it’s basically a healthier version of a deep fryer. It fries food with hot air instead of oil.

Personally, I am still figuring out what works and doesn’t work with it and trying to perfect temperatures and cooking times. I have found that using a lot of liquid batter without any kind of dry coating over it does not work so well. It says you can make donuts in it, but I have no clue how that’d work. I have not tried cooking french fries yet, but I really want to, just haven’t yet.

So far I have fried some soy curls using this recipe here. Those came out excellent, I think I cooked them at 350 for about 10 minutes. I also tried defrosting some Gardein chicken scallopini, coating it in watered down Neat egg substitute coated with vegan/gluten free rice crispy-esque cereal. That was okay, but not that exciting even though I had high hopes.

Then, when I botched a bunch of battered cauliflower, I came up with a splendid idea. But I didn’t have any more cauliflower, so I tried it with tofu. It’s supposed to be like coconut coated fried shrimp, but is made with tofu (and someday I need to try it with cauliflower, too!)

Here is the recipe for it:

Coconut Crusted Air Fried Tofu

Ingredients:

• 1 cup chickpea flour
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup vodka or unflavored soda water/seltzer
• 2 tbsp peanut or vegetable oil
• one bag sweetened shredded coconut flakes
• sweet chili sauce for dipping
• 1 block tofu, preferably frozen, thawed, then pressed for 20 minutes

Directions:

1. Combine flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized mixing bowl.
2. Whisk in the water, vodka/soda water until a liquid, medium thickness batter forms. Water it down if necessary to be the desired thickness, but it should stay fairly thick.
3. Cut tofu into smallish rectangles.
4. Place some of the sweetened coconut into a dish.
5. Dip the tofu in the batter, then into the coconut.
6. Delicately place in the air fryer tray.
7. Air fry for 10 minutes, 350 degrees F or slightly lower if you don’t want it as browned as I did. May take some experimentation as I believe air fryers can vary quite a bit.
8. Use sweet chili sauce to dip in, and serve with a generous helping of veggies!

I’m sure I’ll discover some new tips and tricks about air fryers soon!

So check back here for those.

Until then, or until another recipe creation strikes!

Take care! xo