What to do with that F***ing Tofu?

Yuy, I have been asked a few times to tell my personal tofu tipps, trends and recipes to make this booooring tasting soy thing more delicious.

You can marinate it/ coat it/ glaze it/…

The only rule is you have to add flavour somehow!

Here’s some of the things I would recommend to do with tofu

(leave alone Seitan, Tempeh, Lupine for another post…)

1.For asian inspired dishes glaze it: roast it in a pan with some oil (coconut oil, peanut oil, ghee)until it’s really crunchy, then add a splash of red sweet chili sauce and a splash of soy sauce (not too much as you know it is quite salty) and leave it in the pan for another minute, serve with rice, noodles, curry, veggies…

2. Very good for curry dishes is to fry it until it’s really crunchy on the outside, it’s often served like this in Vietnamese restaurants. You can also buy pre-fried tofu in Asian supermarktes, either you just use it like this, only heating it in the curry shortly before serving or you re-fry it again in a pan for a minute. I sometimes love the slightly glibbery texture of the pre-fried tofu when it’s not complety crunchy, because I think it works well with the all-dente veggies and the spicy coconut curry sauce…

3. Use tofu as a base for falafels, veggie burgers, whatever you wanna call them.
One of my favorite recipes is tofu herbs falafel:

Throw plain tofu or herbs tofu (basil is very good) into the blender, together with fresh herbs and a bit of olive oil, you can also use a good pesto, the oil is important for the texture so that you can form the falafels with your hands. Some tofu is quite wet, for this you can add some flour or better breadcrumbs or potatoe flour (glutenfree). Then let them dry for 2-3 hours and bake them in a deep pan in hot oil. You can coat them in all kinds of things before, like minced pumpkin seeds as I once did for my Monochrome Dinner:

4. make tofu bolognese/pasta sauce

Always lovely, always tasty. You do it like a normal Bolognese, by throwing sliced onions, garlic, veggies like carrots, cellery into a pan with some olive oil and instead of the minced meat you take tofu that you just crumble with your fingers, smoked tofu is also very good!

For an intense taste add not only vegetable stock but also a big gulp of red wine and of course herbs like rosemary, oregano, thyme… but only if the tofu first has become really dried out and starting to get crispy!

In the end either add fresh tomatoes, sieved tomatoes or for a “white bolognese” ricotta cheese - Lovely! I had it at my “A Food Less Ordinary” Dinner!

These are just a few ideas, so many more out there but for the start….

If you really wann get crazy, make your own tofu as I did a few weeks ago:

You need dried soybeans, because you need to make soymilk yourself as the soymilk you can buy cannot be processed to tofu..so after soaking the beans for 24 hours, cooking them and producing the milk (as you see this is not a detailed instruction, just an overview) , you have to add lemon juice, then the soymilk starts reacting. After about 10 minutes you can season the tofu base with whatever you want, we tried out herbs, nut pieces…then you have to press it through a kitchen cloth for several hours and that’s what you get…

A lot of effort but it was very very tasty!

I fried and enjoyed this little delicacy!

Have a fun day with da tofu!

It is tasty - you just have to spice it up!

Photos underneath:

rice noodles with savoy cabbage, chili, cashew nuts and soft not re-fried pre-fried tofu

wholemeal spaghetti with white vegetarian bolognese

yellow thai curry with veggies crunchy fried tofu and black rice

tofu herbs falafel coated in pumpkin seeds with green veggies, pea-wasabi-mash and pumpkin seed oil