There's lots of great ways to cook tofu, different techniques that produce great textures.
For fried rice, you can crush it into pieces using the flat part of a chef's knife (or your hands), then fry at fairly high temperature with about a tbsp of black salt and 1/8 two tumeric. This will create a great protein sourc for "egg" fried rice. You can do the same thing but use other spice (five spice, salt, msg) instead of black salt if you don't like the eggy flavor.
If you want to simply fry tofu, the key is to have a hot enough pan, use enough oil, and be patient for it to naturally release from the pan. You can make very good tofu by just slicing it like bread into .5x2x3 inch blocks and using this method, flipping once.
Pressing is not necessary for frying. Pressing is most useful if you are going to use a marinade - it's like squeezing a sponge and then using it to soak up the marinade. Many people will tell you to press in order to fry, but this is because they're using too little oil/too low of heat/not waiting long enough, leading to the tofu sticking.
You can make blackened tofu by just adding a blackening spice coating to the tofu. Make sure the area is well-ventilated.
Dry tofu is good thinly sliced, stir-fried with celery.
You can make tofu super spongey by freezing it slowly, then thawing it.
You can make tofu have an almost meaty or mushrooms texture by freezing it / thawing it twice
The special sauce for a fried tofu banh mi is just Maggi sauce.
Any sauce with sauteed soy sauce is good on tofu. You can add any of these things in different combinations for a good sauce:
veggie oyster sauce
chili oil
doubanjiang
sesame oil
sesame paste
chopped pickled peppers
black vinegar
a little rice vinegar
a peanut sauce
anything from lao gan ma
Tofu can even be good barely cooked. Mapo tofu is great, surprisingly easy. You just end up pre-boiling the tofu for a bit, then simmer in sauce.
Depends on what I've got in my freezer left over from other recipes. It's quite versatile since you can put most anything in. Most recently it was corn, peas, broccoli, and edamame.
I always hated tofu until I learned to press it to remove moisture. Makes it firmer and more able to take corn starch.
Anyways, I cut it into small cubes, toss in corn starch, and fry in oil until golden brown. While frying, I put together a marinade/sauce, then add it to the pan to coat and thicken when the tofu is done. I haven't gone much into pre-cook marination since I like to spend time doing other things.
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I am here to share tofu opinions.
There's lots of great ways to cook tofu, different techniques that produce great textures.
For fried rice, you can crush it into pieces using the flat part of a chef's knife (or your hands), then fry at fairly high temperature with about a tbsp of black salt and 1/8 two tumeric. This will create a great protein sourc for "egg" fried rice. You can do the same thing but use other spice (five spice, salt, msg) instead of black salt if you don't like the eggy flavor.
If you want to simply fry tofu, the key is to have a hot enough pan, use enough oil, and be patient for it to naturally release from the pan. You can make very good tofu by just slicing it like bread into .5x2x3 inch blocks and using this method, flipping once.
Pressing is not necessary for frying. Pressing is most useful if you are going to use a marinade - it's like squeezing a sponge and then using it to soak up the marinade. Many people will tell you to press in order to fry, but this is because they're using too little oil/too low of heat/not waiting long enough, leading to the tofu sticking.
You can make blackened tofu by just adding a blackening spice coating to the tofu. Make sure the area is well-ventilated.
Dry tofu is good thinly sliced, stir-fried with celery.
You can make tofu super spongey by freezing it slowly, then thawing it.
You can make tofu have an almost meaty or mushrooms texture by freezing it / thawing it twice
The special sauce for a fried tofu banh mi is just Maggi sauce.
Any sauce with sauteed soy sauce is good on tofu. You can add any of these things in different combinations for a good sauce:
veggie oyster sauce
chili oil
doubanjiang
sesame oil
sesame paste
chopped pickled peppers
black vinegar
a little rice vinegar
a peanut sauce
anything from lao gan ma
Tofu can even be good barely cooked. Mapo tofu is great, surprisingly easy. You just end up pre-boiling the tofu for a bit, then simmer in sauce.
deleted by creator
Depends on what I've got in my freezer left over from other recipes. It's quite versatile since you can put most anything in. Most recently it was corn, peas, broccoli, and edamame.
I always hated tofu until I learned to press it to remove moisture. Makes it firmer and more able to take corn starch.
Anyways, I cut it into small cubes, toss in corn starch, and fry in oil until golden brown. While frying, I put together a marinade/sauce, then add it to the pan to coat and thicken when the tofu is done. I haven't gone much into pre-cook marination since I like to spend time doing other things.
deleted by creator