Notes:
This popcorn tofu recipe is absolute fire--and the little crispy bits taste like asiago or cheddar cheese crunchies.
I spent almost four hours making this meal/meal prep. One thing I am trying really hard to focus on in cooking this summer is flavoring and subtlety. With a background of eating/cooking more American southern style meals, I find most asian noodle dishes (or salads) to be a good way to experiment with both vegetables and sauce.
This recipe came out rather strongly flavored, mostly due to the excessive amounts of fresh ginger used, but it was still delicious (I love ginger). There are plenty of places you could reduce the strength of the flavor or the level of calories, and as with most stir fry dishes the protein and veg are interchangeable with your favorites. The sauce and preparation method is the key component to replicating the dishes flavor; and of course if you want to replicate the textures as well, you would of course need to copy my ingredients exactly.

Recipe:

Popcorn Tofu (Air Fried):

One block extra firm tofu (16oz)
3 tablespoons of corn starch
3 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
3 tablespoons seasoning (I used white sesame, tajin, and garlic)
3 tablespoons soy
3 tablespoons oil (I used avocado oil but any will do)

Press extra firm tofu in a tofu press to release as much water as possible.
Still the batter together until liquid, should be slightly clumpy but no worries if its a little runnier. Preheat the Air Fryer to 400 and cover the pressed tofu in the batter; cook on manual for 20 minutes once preheated, turning halfway through.

Noodles:
I cooked these rice noodles via a standard boiling and the density was to my personal taste, a little on the firmer side. I rinsed the noodles immediately in cold water until they were cool, then stirred them with a small amount of basil-infused olive oil and lemon, adding fresh diced ginger and green onion. I let them sit like that until it was time to stir fry them with the tofu and cooked veg.

Veg: I chopped garlic and carrots and cooked them together on medium-high heat until cooked through. They burnt a bit--if you used medium heat and waited longer you'd get a nice carmelized brown outside layer rather than the burnt bits I got from hurrying it. In a separate pan, I crisped diced garlic and ginger in chili oil; this was a crunch topping addition that added a kick and some texture.

stir fry: I fried the noodle mixture, sliced popcorn tofu, and veg mixture on high heat in a saucepan with light basil oil for a few minutes, until the noodles were 'obvioiusly fried'.

topping: I topped this with avocado and a mixture of tamarind chutney and peanuts. This was overkill on flavor but I really liked the chutney and will probably continue to add it to everything until I get a feel for its flavor and texture pairings, or get bored.

This was really tasty! And I learned a lot about flavor and process order. I took this really slow in order to focus on certain steps, and I am happy with how it turned out. Next time, I'll probably use less oil and decide between the peanut-tamarind topping vs the chili-garlic ginger topping, as opposed to using both. I would probably also cut the veg small and thin enough that it would cook through during the noodle frying phase, so I dont need to fry twice (and use twice as much oil). Otherwise I am very happy with how this came out!

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