This is what happens when your taste buds have all rotted off under a constant barrage of high fructose corn syrup and carboxylic acid from soft drink.
I love strong flavors like spicy food and spirit-forward cocktails, and I’m a fan of tofu. Obviously it’s a nothing food on it’s own, it becomes a vehicle for sauce or surrounding foods.
So make a good marinade and let it soak in it before drying it off and frying it so it has a good marinated fried crust and subtle flavors of the marinade inside
Meat dishes are pretty shitty too if you don’t season them properly
I have to recommend against marinade. It doesn’t penetrate very deeply even if you squash tofu.
Instead I would say that tofu is best blanched first in very salty water to firm up the skin but leave it tender, then cooked and served in either a flavourful broth or some sort of sauce.
The western style is more pressing and marinades, but it doesn’t flavour it as much and restricts you to limited textures.
Blanch, deep/shallow fry to puff up, then braise is also excellent but a lot of trouble. The blanching lets it survive frying, the frying puffs it up, and the braising broth then penetrates.
For a meaty preparation try freezing and thawing 2 times to open up holes and disrupt structure, then squish water out. Follow by braising, or battering and frying for a junk good style snack.
I will try some of this, I’m an uncultured cracker who never ate tofu before being exposed to it at work, now im the vegan chef and while your methods might be better at least the marinade -> fry method I’ve been doing consistently gives better results than what the other cooks do, because they will typically just season and roast it or marinate it very briefly (so very little flavor gets absorbed).
I usually marinate it over night in a dilute soy sauce (so it doesn’t get too salty) with some vegan chicken stock mixed in, drain it, fry it and then reheat it later in whatever sauce or preparation i’m doing. I don’t press it because it takes too much time to do that and i’m lazy. Unless I’m using it for like vegan feta cheese at least
yeah I’m definitely gonna experiment the next time I have free time. I’m not sure if I will tomorrow, I gotta make paninis and I forget what else and it’s gonna be annoying because I didn’t really prep at all on Friday
lmk how it goes if you do? photos if you take any would be amazing.
I am just a goose mucking around in a kitchen and I would love to know what someone who cooks professionally finds/if my findings replicate/if you have a different impression of what the masses would enjoy eating.
Well yes, it’s a raw block of protein to cook with. Meat’s fundamentally the same way, it’s just tofu is at once easier to work with and control the flavor of but also requires you to actually do that. Someone can (but shouldn’t) get away with just seasoning a slab of beef with salt and some beef you don’t even have to really cook for it to be edible, whereas tofu has to be cooked and thoroughly seasoned with warm spices and aromatics, but it’s much easier to make tofu taste good and mesh into a dish than to do the same with beef which wants to overpower whatever it’s put in so it has to go in a heavily seasoned dish to compensate.
I’m so stupid sometimes, I read “olive paste” and thought it was some sort of olive oil based thing when like, duh, you can make a paste out of olives x_x
It doesn’t have any taste. There’s nothing to like.
Ugh, this canvas doesn’t have any paint. There’s nothing to like!
skill issue
The noodles maybe, the rest is fake
Try some General Tso’s Tofu it’s almost like eating chicken, you get used to it really easily.
Also no risk of getting tendons or bones in it.
That just means it’s a blank canvas for spices and oils and salt.
This is what happens when your taste buds have all rotted off under a constant barrage of high fructose corn syrup and carboxylic acid from soft drink.
I love strong flavors like spicy food and spirit-forward cocktails, and I’m a fan of tofu. Obviously it’s a nothing food on it’s own, it becomes a vehicle for sauce or surrounding foods.
Not obvious at all lol. I frequently eat tofu plain as a snack, or in cold minimally flavoured broth in summer.
Soymilk has a taste, tofu is literally just coagulated soy milk. It has flavour!
So make a good marinade and let it soak in it before drying it off and frying it so it has a good marinated fried crust and subtle flavors of the marinade inside
Meat dishes are pretty shitty too if you don’t season them properly
I have to recommend against marinade. It doesn’t penetrate very deeply even if you squash tofu.
Instead I would say that tofu is best blanched first in very salty water to firm up the skin but leave it tender, then cooked and served in either a flavourful broth or some sort of sauce.
The western style is more pressing and marinades, but it doesn’t flavour it as much and restricts you to limited textures.
Blanch, deep/shallow fry to puff up, then braise is also excellent but a lot of trouble. The blanching lets it survive frying, the frying puffs it up, and the braising broth then penetrates.
For a meaty preparation try freezing and thawing 2 times to open up holes and disrupt structure, then squish water out. Follow by braising, or battering and frying for a junk good style snack.
I will try some of this, I’m an uncultured cracker who never ate tofu before being exposed to it at work, now im the vegan chef and while your methods might be better at least the marinade -> fry method I’ve been doing consistently gives better results than what the other cooks do, because they will typically just season and roast it or marinate it very briefly (so very little flavor gets absorbed).
I usually marinate it over night in a dilute soy sauce (so it doesn’t get too salty) with some vegan chicken stock mixed in, drain it, fry it and then reheat it later in whatever sauce or preparation i’m doing. I don’t press it because it takes too much time to do that and i’m lazy. Unless I’m using it for like vegan feta cheese at least
If you’ve got the time try some experiments with cutting it open to see how far the sauce penetrates.
Cut thin and fried will pick up flavour I just think it’s restrictive and slow vs other methods. I copy Chinese prep generally
yeah I’m definitely gonna experiment the next time I have free time. I’m not sure if I will tomorrow, I gotta make paninis and I forget what else and it’s gonna be annoying because I didn’t really prep at all on Friday
lmk how it goes if you do? photos if you take any would be amazing.
I am just a goose mucking around in a kitchen and I would love to know what someone who cooks professionally finds/if my findings replicate/if you have a different impression of what the masses would enjoy eating.
Well yes, it’s a raw block of protein to cook with. Meat’s fundamentally the same way, it’s just tofu is at once easier to work with and control the flavor of but also requires you to actually do that. Someone can (but shouldn’t) get away with just seasoning a slab of beef with salt and some beef you don’t even have to really cook for it to be edible, whereas tofu has to be cooked and thoroughly seasoned with warm spices and aromatics, but it’s much easier to make tofu taste good and mesh into a dish than to do the same with beef which wants to overpower whatever it’s put in so it has to go in a heavily seasoned dish to compensate.
You can 100% raw dog that shit though. A lot of vegan recipes like vegan feta or vegan sour cream use raw tofu as a base for it
I’ve been doing toast with olive paste and sliced tofu on top for my go to, after work meal.
I’m so stupid sometimes, I read “olive paste” and thought it was some sort of olive oil based thing when like, duh, you can make a paste out of olives x_x