Korean Pan-fried tofu

Tofu is available all over the Asian country. You may see tofu in all Asian restaurant in western world. But upon my experience of visiting Asian country, tofu is most beloved in Japan, Korea and China.

Three asian country use same chinese character 豆腐, but pronounce in a little different way. "Tofu" is Japanese pronounciation. China says somewhat like "Ddo-pfu". And Korean says "Du-bu". 10 years ago many western people used 'Bean curd", "Bean cake", but now Tofu can be understood to any people.

Tofu literally means "Expired beans" or "fermented beans". But it is not actually fermented. The way of make tofu is similiar to the cottage cheese recipe, but more difficult. I will not describe the way because it's hard to follow. The best way to get tofu is going to grocery and grab one.

Almost every Korean loves tofu. Actually Korean people don't realize how much they love tofu, because it is not special food but daily food consumed with every rice meal. We use tofu for Korean soup, soju(Korean sake) helper, and so on.

One of best way to enjoy tofu is pan-fried style. Korean says "Dubu gu-i" or "Dubu buchim".
Recipe is
1. Slice Tofu (1cm thick)
2. Put some salt on tofu and lay on the kitchen towel to drain water.
3. Hit the pan and put some sesame oil.
4. Fry it !
5. Serve with soy sauce (Usually seasoned with chilli pepper, onion, green onion and garlic)







There are some variations, using corn-starch to make it more crispy, using eggs to enrich the taste.

Many restaurant provides Pan fried tofu as a side-dish, which means you can not order pan fried tofu as your main meal. Some restaurant with tofu specialty offers pan-fried tofu.If you would visit Korea to taste real good pan-fried tofu, please leave me a reply message to this posting to let me introduce you about a nice restaurant nearby your place.