Tofu in Pomegranate Sauce - #CIC

When tofu won one of the polls for January's Crazy Ingredient Challenge, I really wanted to kick myself. I finalize these lists. How could I have put the dreaded tofu on the list? Shouldn't I be rigging these things to suit my preferences. Alas, I don't, so here it is: tofu and pomegranate. Just in case it isn't clear, I do not like tofu. At all.

I'm not going to tell you that I tasted this dish and the clouds parted and the sun shone bright and I licked my plate clean. Nope. It's still tofu. The sauce is delicious and I can't wait to try it with some chicken. But the sauce was not enough to get me to like tofu. My issue with tofu is mainly the texture. There's an underlying flavour that I don't quite like but I can handle that.  I'd have to process the tofu into little tiny bits and hide it in a bunch of stuff in order to not dislike it.

I'm looking forward to seeing what my fellow CIC members did with their tofu because I have some tofu left and I don't want to throw it out. And unfortunately, we are all anti-tofu around here. Maybe someone processed it to smithereens just for me? Let's scroll down to see!

Tofu in Pomegranate Sauce

14-16 oz tofu
salt & pepper to taste (I used a lot of black pepper)
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch (plus more for coating tofu)
1 cup pomegranate juice
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 inch ginger, grated
1 garlic clove, mined
dash of salt
dash of cayenne

Directions
Remove tofu from packaging, wrap in paper towels and place a heavy object on top of the tofu. The object is to remove as much of the water as possible. I left mine for longer than a night but I think it takes less time than that.
After the tofu is drained and pressed, slice into cubes and season generously with salt and pepper.

When you're ready to cook, toss the tofu in some cornstarch and set aside.
Dissolve the 1 1/2 tablespoons of cornstarch in two tablespoons of pomegranate juice and set aside.
Simmer the pomegranate juice, sugar, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, salt, and cayenne over low heat for about 20 minutes.
Stir in the cornstarch slurry and let the mixture thicken to desired consistency. Remove from heat.

Shallow fry tofu cubes until golden and crispy. Toss in sauce and serve.


Notes
I tried a version of this with honey and no cornstarch. It was stickier and I did prefer that consistency. However, I hadn't gotten the flavour quite right so I decided to stick with this sauce.

An InLinkz Link-up