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

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!