Well, Friends, I have been vegan for almost six months now, and I decided it's time to try tofu--basically a rite of passage for vegans/vegetarians. I only say that because I grew up having no clue what tofu is and it always seemed at the top of the "weird foods" list to me; it's a very common ingredient for the most part, but it was completely new to me. But I was interested to try it!
After reading a ton of info about the best ways to prepare it, I ended up combining a prep method with someone else's recipe and then my own recipe, so this isn't really a review of one recipe like I normally do. This was more of an adventure in tofu.
First, I read on this site about how freezing and then thawing extra-firm tofu can give it a firmer, chewier texture that is closer to meat. I got this info from Plant Power Couple. I bought some extra-firm tofu, which looked like this:
I'd had it in the freezer for a couple of weeks (not necessary to freeze that long, but since I wasn't sure what to do with it yet, I just had it hanging out in the freezer). Then I thawed in the refrigerator overnight. When I opened it, there was no smell from it at all, which was a relief to me. The texture was just like a sponge--it was tempting to squeeze it hard to get all the water out!
Following the instructions from Plant Power Couple, I drained the tofu and then placed it between some paper towels and put "something heavy" on it. I used a Corningware dish and added some cans of beans to weigh it down more. The whole purpose of this is to remove as much liquid as possible from the tofu.
This is what it looked like right after setting the dish on top:
And about four hours later, after a couple of paper towel changes:
You can see how much it shrank from removing the excess liquid. From there, I cut it into cubes:
After this, per the same site, I made a marinade. For that, I followed the recipe for Sweet & Sour Marinade at Andi Anne.
It started looking really gross once it was in the marinade:
After about four hours, I started on the cooking process. From that point, I started following the recipe for Orange Tofu from Healthy Simple Yum. I wanted to make a batter for it to hopefully make the tofu more appealing to someone who has never eaten it (i.e. me). These ingredients are for the batter and the sauce:
The batter consists of flour, cornstarch, garlic powder, salt, and water. I messed this up a little by just coating it with the flour/cornstarch mixture and leaving out the water--I realized that just before I started cooking it, so I added a little water and tried to stir it in, but it just kind of made a goopy mess. I hoped it was good enough.
This was before adding the water |
I didn't use all the oil called for (1/2 cup) to cook the tofu--I just used a couple of tablespoons. While I'm sure that much oil makes it very crispy and delicious, I just didn't feel good about pouring all that oil into the pan. Using the small amount I did actually worked very well:
It was really starting to look edible! I set the cooked tofu aside while I mixed the sauce ingredients and then brought it up to a simmer to thicken. The sauce was really good! I used less sugar than called for, though--the recipe said 1/3 to 1/2 cup, but I used 1/4 cup (and I wouldn't change that--I may use even less next time). This is the texture of the sauce before adding the tofu:
I dumped the tofu back into the pan with the sauce:
I was careful when stirring it together, because I was worried the tofu would crumble apart or something (it didn't). I cooked some basmati rice (yum!) and served the Orange Tofu on top of the rice.
Yay tofu! ;)

You can actually just toss the tofu with some cornstarch, no need to make a batter. I've done that before. I have never marinated tofu, though. Sometimes I take extra firm tofu, cut it into triangles, dip them in liquid aminos and bake at 400, flipping once, until they're firm. My boys eat those up like cheese!
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