Cooking with tofu

Dont be at yourself

OK, as a student living in Japan, I'm very interested in cooking with tofu: it's cheap and it's filling. But it's also very bland.

I usually just toss some into a stir-fry, and have made mobu-dofu once or twice, but I'm looking for something a little more adventurous. Bonus points for it being a) cheap, and b) quick and easy.

So go on, help your nakedbibleman!

Macha

Having a veg boyfriend, I generally end up chucking chopped up tofu into everything.

I know you can have teriyaki tofu by marinading the tofu in teriyaki sauce (bought or homemade) & then frying in fryingpan.

U might want to post on the veg board as they're all prob experts in tofu variation recipes!

CJhaughey

You can fry Tofu it all depends on which type of Tofu you are talking about, there are many variations in Asia, from soft curd-like Tofu to harder textured stuff suitable for frying, to the dried beancurd sticks that you can find in the asian foods section, light yellow colour and wrinkly, that are used for soups.
Tofu comes in many forms, try them all and find out what you like the best.

Dont be at yourself

Throughout my experimenting, I've come across a decent tip. Take your slab of tofu, wrap it in a tea towel and sit a heavy weight like a breadboard or something on it and leave it for a few hours to take some of the water out. It makes it much firmer and wont just fall apart during cooking.

It's still bland though!

Shabadu

If you freeze firm tofu and then thaw it, the texture somehow changes to a more resilient sponginess.

A really nice way to finish off a dish is to cube and stirfry some firm tofu in sesame oil with a dash of tamari and chili sauce, then drizzle it with a little honey and a spoon of toasted sesame seeds. Really good with a salad of grated daikon and carrots with a sweet mirin dressing.