Tofu side dish within 10 minutes| Vegan | Bean curd skin salad | tofu strips salad 涼拌豆皮絲
This is a super flavorful and refreshing Chinese style tofu salad or cold dish, which you can find in many northern Chinese restaurants. It’s usually served as a side dish or appetizer, and also extremely popular in summer. It’s totally plant-based, and super easy and quick to make.
Tofu sheets are sometimes also called tofu skin. It’s a type of tofu that has been pressed into thin sheets. Compared with ordinary tofu blocks, this type is a lot drier, firmer, very pliable and chewy. It’s widely used in Chinese cuisine like stir-fries, cold salads and soups, also traditionally used as a meat substitute because of its texture, such as vegetarian chicken(Suji, 素鸡). If you want to buy tofu sheets, look for the vacuum sealed packages in the refrigerated tofu section in your local Chinese grocery store. There are also sliced tofu strips available too sometimes.

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►Ingredients：
130g Tofu sheets or sliced tofu strips (or called doufupi, or qianzhang)
50g red capsicum (bell pepper)
35g coriander (Cilantro)

For the dressing:
1+½ tbsp minced garlic
2 tsp red chili powder(optional)
¼ tsp Sichuan peppercorn powder
1 tbsp sesame seeds
2 tbsp cooking oil
¼ tsp salt (or more, if needed)
1 tsp Sugar
1 tbsp Light soy sauce
1 tbsp Chinese black vinegar (Chinkiang vinegar, or balsamic vinegar)
1 tsp toasted sesame oil

An easier version of the dressing:
1 tsp minced garlic
¼ tsp salt (or more, if needed)
1 tsp Sugar
1 tbsp Light soy sauce
1 tbsp Chinese black vinegar (Chinkiang vinegar, or balsamic vinegar)
2 tbsp homemade chili oil
1 tsp toasted sesame oil

►Instructions:
Step 1.
First of all, separate each layer gently. All the layers kind of stick together because it has been vacuum packaged. Then cut them in to strips. You can cut them as thin as you want or match the sizes of the veggies you gonna put in later. Then loosen them up. Each strip is about 15cm (or 6 inches) long, which is a perfect size for cooking. Then slightly cook them in boiling salty water for a couple of minutes to reduce the beany flavor and soften the tofu sheets. Then soak them in cold water or you can just rinse them under tap water to cool them down and prevent them sticking together. Then drain them again, set aside.
Step 2.
Make the dressing. Prepare a mixing bowl, add in 1+½ tbsp minced garlic, 2 tsp red chili powder (it’s optional if you don’t like spicy food), ¼ tsp ground Sichuan peppercorn, and 1 tbsp sesame seeds. Set aside.
Then put a small sauce pan on high heat, add in 2 tbsp of cooking oil, I use rice bran oil in this recipe. Heat it up until the oil is just about to smoke. Then turn the heat off. Pour the hot oil directly into the mixed spices, and give it a quick stir. So that all the flavor of the spices will be extracted out and infused into the dressing. Then add in ¼ tsp salt (or more, if needed), 1 tsp Sugar, 1 tbsp Light soy sauce, 1 tbsp Chinese black vinegar (or balsamic vinegar if you don’t have it), and 1 tsp toasted sesame oil. Mix it well.
Alternatively, you can make a simplified version of this dressing. You’ll need 1 tsp minced garlic, ¼ tsp salt (or more, if needed), 1 tsp Sugar, 1 tbsp Light soy sauce, 1 tbsp Chinese black vinegar (or balsamic vinegar), 2 tbsp homemade chili oil, 1 tsp toasted sesame oil. Then mix it well.
Step 3.
Assemble the salad. Put the tofu strips in a large mixing bowl. Make sure they are drained properly, because you don’t want your tasty dressing getting diluted and watery. Add in the dressing, give it a good mix. Let the tasty dressing combined with every single tofu strip. Then add in julienne red capsicum (or bell pepper) and chopped coriander (or cilantro). Coriander is also a key ingredient for this recipe to give the salad an extra fragrance and freshness. However, you can definitely be free style, for example adding in julienne carrots, cucumbers, spring onions or whatever you have in your fridge. Mix it well. Then it’s ready to serve.
You can also put it in the fridge for half an hour or so, or until when your main meal is ready. It’ll taste even better after chilled. ;)

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