Soy hates my intestines, gluten as well, but I saw some new meat alternatives at a fancy grocery store so I am once again attempting to wean down from animals.
I found some pumpkin seed tofu and some fava bean tofu at the fancy grocery store. Cooking experiment, procedure done with both kinds of tofu:
Tofus were frozen, but I thawed them in the fridge for a day before cooking. Cut them into bite sized cubes
Put pan on stove with spices and oil. Turn burner on to mid heat. When hot, put tofu in. Wait a while. Take tongs and use them to flip the tofu cubes…
The pumpkin tofu cooked fine. Stayed intact, got to a food safe internal temp. In contrast, the fava bean tofu kept sticking to the pan and leaving a layer behind when I flipped it, and that layer burned. Meanwhile, it never reached 165 degrees F. I think it was wetter as the pumpkin tofu was prepressed
Eventually in frustration I just macerated the fava bean tofu into crumbles, left it on high and covered for a bit to make sure it hit the food safe temp, called it done and scraped what wasn’t ash out of the pan. I’ve been adding the crumbs to daal to make them palatable/tolerable. Based on this experience I think I should stick with pumpkin, but I need as much variety as I can get in my already limited diet so I’d like to make the fava bean tofu work too. It also did not seem to really take the spices I put in as well and was overall more bland.
This has to just be a skill issue. What did I do wrong? I was basically trying to cook these as if they were meat; was that conceptually the wrong approach? Seems to have been because they’re more delicate.
Neither of these tofus have tried to claw their way out from inside my body, so at least if I can figure out how to cook them they could be viable.
What type of pan are you using? I use Teflon pans for tofu and find that tofu has sticking problems with other types of pan. If you don’t have Teflon you could try other types of non-stick but they aren’t as non-stick as Teflon unfortunately.
Also why are you cooking to a certain temperature? Tofu can be eaten raw. When you fry it it’s just to heat it up and get it crispy, not to kill bacteria.
Yes, tofu is not meat.
Maybe try following a recipe for tofu? You can try salt and pepper tofu, mapo tofu, scrambled tofu perhaps?
Stainless steel pan. I don’t have Teflon anything because I used to have a bird and might adopt one again someday, in which case I’d have to throw out the Teflon.
Package said “cook to 165 degrees Fahrenheit” so I tried to
Stainless steel should work fine too. I’d say disregard that package instruction. Cooking is an art not a science. Try just frying till brown and crispy. Or try something that’s not frying e.g. mapo tofu is quite wet so shouldn’t stick at all.