/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.12096684]

Give me some ideas for tofu. Only tried it recently. I have been eating it with broccoli, rice, and gook sauces.

[Anonymous No.12096794]

>>12096684
I've been on this quest for a long time. These last few months I have switched over to baking the tofu, which tastes better and takes less effort than using a pan.
Experiment with marinades, make your own. There are four basic components of a good marinade: your oil, your acid, your salts, and your aromatics. Best to stick with sesame oil, no more than a tablespoon per pound. Acid is what gets the flavor into the tofu, rice vinegar is a common go-to. I use jinjiang vinegar which is a very fragrant, dark colored Chinese rice vinegar. For your salts, that'll be tamari or soy sauce. The aromatics are up to you though. Ginger, paprika, chile powder, cayenne pepper. I like the more pungent ones myself. Just note the solubility of your spices, and use parchment paper in the pan, otherwise they'll burn easily. Jianjing vinegar can burn too, I should say.
As for vegetables, try bamboo shoots and water chestnuts, they add great texture and can add good taste if you pan fry them in leftover marinade. They're cheap too. Right now in Japan, bamboo shoots over rice is a seasonal dish, see how they prepare it for tips.

[Anonymous No.12096885]

>>12096684
I found a copycat recipe for Chipotle's sofritas. It's not exactly the same but it's really good over rice.

https://www.culinaryhill.com/chipotle-sofritas-recipe-copycat/

[Anonymous No.12096903]

try to find a shop which makes it daily
try to find a shop which fries it daily

this is how i buy it, from a little dude who doesn't speak english
It's MUCH better than packaged stuff, and cheaper.
I think he mostly supplies to restaurants.
If you live in a city with a big chinese diaspora, you're gonna have one of these little dudes hiding somewhere. You just have to find him. Mine didn't have a website or anything.

With it like this, I just add cubes to curries or soups or slice it and add it to stirfries, fried noodle dishes like pad thai, fried rice, anything.

Just don't make the mistake of thinking you should never eat it with meat or that it has to be healthy, chinese people don't consider tofu that way.

[Anonymous No.12096908]

Also it's so much easier to use like that, you just chuck it in stuff, and it's tasty even just dipped in hoisin sauce as a snack.

All the fucking around people do with tofu is such a goddamn waste of time.

[Anonymous No.12096913]

>>12096684
the only tofu I've ever had that I like was a spicy fried tofu with bean sprouts

[Anonymous No.12096914]

mapo tofu

[Anonymous No.12096951]

>>12096684
This is one of my favorite tofu recipes:

No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie
2 C. Chocolate Chips
12 oz. Silken Tofu (Firm)
1 ½ C. Creamy Peanut Butter
½ C. Milk
1 Graham Cracker Crust

Optional Toppings:
1 C. Chocolate Chips
1 C. Chopped Peanuts

1. Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave.
2. In a food processor or blender, combine the tofu, peanut butter, melted chips, and milk.
3. Pour the filling over the crust and refrigerate for 2 hours.
4. For a crunchy chocolate topping, melt the extra chips and pour over the chilled pie. Sprinkle on peanuts if desired, and chill another 2 hours.

[Anonymous No.12096973]

>>12096684
marinate if you wish, dredge in cornstarch or 50/50 cornstarch and (rice)flour, deep fry, serve with whatever - they're basically tofu nuggets.

[Anonymous No.12097017]

>>12096908
>and it's tasty even just dipped in hoisin sauce as a snack.

Honestly this seems like the best use of tofu.

[Anonymous No.12097026]

>>12096973
This guy's right. A good marinade is a tablespoon or two each of maple syrup and soy sauce. After that just treat it like cheaper tendies, it's the same slightly Maillarded/salty otherwise flavorless sauce vehicle.

[Anonymous No.12097226]

>>12096684
Easy Vegan has a great vid for getting good tofu texture https://youtu.be/LwDYQxdc5_Q

also Mapo tofu is a my top tofu dish

[Anonymous No.12097906]

There was a Thai restaurant doing a buffet one sunday and I don't know if the tofu was fried or baked but it had a really good texture, it was finger food. It could be eaten alone or dipped in a Thai sauce, that was really good.
If you can find that I suggest trying that out.
This thread remindes me to make some of that sauce now since I have the peppers and fish sauce, but I'm doing other stuff right now.

[Anonymous No.12099334]

>>12096684
Try throwing it in the trash.