Complaining about tofu being bland is the equivalent of saying that a blank canvas is boring.

Saying you hate tofu is such a self own. It is one of and maybe the most versatile food of all time. It is cheap. It’s macros are at parity with chicken breast. It keeps well AND is much safer (food safety and healthwise) than meat.

I can confirm as someone going from eating meat with every meal to vegan, basic ass fried tofu tastes better than most restaurant meat these days.

What is even wilder is that the US grows a lot of soybeans, and the ideal target for MAGA would probably be a soybean farmer.

      • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        12·
        10 days ago

        Im going to bed rn, but im looking into this tomorrow at work. It counts as part of my job cause im researching food and im a cook. I work witha guy who has a geology degree and I a have had a casual interest in biochemistry as a long time nerd and former every drug user who likes not to die. Together we have done whar no cook has every attempted: applied the principles of basic chemistry to our job occasionally, it does genuinely help to know why something does or doesnt work.

        • Robert_Kennedy_Jr [xe/xem, xey/xem]@hexbear.netEnglish
          7·
          10 days ago

          The act of adding tofu to salted hot water for a time and then removing it to drain and dry firms up the texture. The process counterintuitively draws moisture from the outer layers because heat brings some of the innermost liquid to the surface of the curd, which you can either blot off with kitchen roll (or a tea towel) or leave to steam dry.

          Furthermore, the use of salt adds seasoning that improves the flavour. After draining the salt water treated tofu, the surface firms up. Of particular importance if you intend to fry the tofu is ensuring the surface is dry, which occurs naturally if you leave the hot strained tofu on a tea towel to dry out.

    • culpritus [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      6·
      10 days ago

      My hypothesis is that it forces some of the water inside to turn into steam which then boils off, but it’s definitely very counterintuitive.

    • soybeanis [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      5·
      10 days ago

      I think the idea is that by boiling it in salt, you osmosis water out of the tofu; then, after removing the unequilibrated and still-hot tofu, which has soaked up some salt/flavors and lost some moisture (relatively, once it’s been cooled and patted down), is tastier and drier