More on the cooking front!

[tuftears]

On the heels of Friday's experiment at 'Healthy Loco Moco', Saturday, with the ground beef, asparagus, and firm tofu I'd picked up at Safeway's, I made a stirfry.

You all know what stirfries are, but this was the first time I'd cooked tofu, so I was a bit nervous. I looked up some recipes for cooking tofu on Google, and settled on this:

- I cut the tofu block into 1-inch squares, each no more than 0.3 inches high
- I heated some oil up in a large-ish frying pan, medium heat
- I then fried the tofu on the oil

It took about 10 minutes to cook each side to a golden brown, which surprised me. This is why I cut the pieces thin, though, otherwise the inside might be uncooked. Having done this, I took the tofu out and put it on some napkins to drain the oil while I sautee'd the hamburger, then put the asparagus (chopped into small 0.25-inch-long pieces) into the center with some water and a lid on top to steam them for about 5 minutes. Cornstarch-water mix, stir tofu back in, let it blend a bit, and I was done with a delicious stirfry!

(note: I marinaded the beef with ginger and soy sauce; if you don't do this then you'll need to add it in the process of cooking)

Comments

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

I'm still trying to figure out the right way to do tofu. One of these days, I hope I can fix it up like they do at Pei-Wei. =9

I typically get the most dense type of tofu I can get, and even then, I still need to put it in the oven for a few minutes, to "toughen" it up a bit before I cut it into thin slices. I've been told that I should compress the pieces to get more moisture out, but I haven't tried that yet (and I'm not quite sure how that'll work).

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

It's most likely that they deep fry the tofu!

One trick I saw mentioned was that you can freeze the tofu. This site (http://www.cooking-solutions.com/tofulesson.html) suggests you can freeze and thaw it, you could put paper towels on top and bottom and a heavy weight on top of that to press it, etc.

One site suggests "dry frying". (http://hubpages.com/hub/How_to_Cook_Tofu_Like_the_Pros)

I still have another box of tofu so I will probably experiment with freezing it over the week and seeing how it holds up.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

The 'dry-frying' is basically baking. I suspect you could get the same with a nonstick pan in the oven at a low temperature, like 275-300.

But yes, extra-firm is best for stir-fries. :) Sounds yummy!

--Chi

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Sounds right! I'd imagine it'd take a long time to bake the moisture out of the tofu that way though.

Tofu by its nature...

[traveller-blues.livejournal.com]

...is a 'wet' food. They pack it in water to keep it wet. Usually (like last night) I put it in right after the meat, but well before the vegetables. The important thing about cooking tofu (to me, anyway) is that it picks up the flavor of what it's being fried with, rather than how wet or dry it is -- the key trick here is that you buy it in the consistency you want at the outset. I use extra firm for stir fries and silken for soups.

-Trav

Re: Tofu by its nature...

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I'm pondering a mapo tofu for this weekend to use the other pack of tofu!

[foxmagic.livejournal.com]

I have a mental image of Loco Roco, the game, as I read this... making food that looks like the little happy guys from the game. ;)