/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.17609415]

Give me some tips on cooking with tofu. I'm planning to make my normal stir-fry but instead of pork I will use tofu. Tell me how to get the best results.

[Anonymous No.17609447]

>>17609415
Tofu does not make for a great meat replacement. If a easy meat replacement is what you are looking for use tempeh instead.
For tofu you should prep it accordingly. To get decent browning either coat in cornstarch or give it some time on a cast iron skillet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vWIenK4p60
has some tofu frying technique, but there are other methods too.
You can also cube it and coat it in starch before frying but usually you make that with a sauce, the starch will thicken any sauce it comes in contact with, so you may need to adapt that for a stir fry a bit.

[Anonymous No.17609457]

The internet said to try freezing it before thawing, then slicing to get a better texture for fried tofu but I haven't tried it.

I usually deep fry tofu with cornstarch on it, but you really want HIGH HEAT to get a good brown crust on tofu.

[Anonymous No.17609503]

Cut into squares (about half as thin as picrel) and cook in a pan. Dip it in soy sauce as you eat, but don’t go overboard. Serve with white rice. You can eat it as a main dish if you want, or as a side.

[Anonymous No.17609507]

>>17609447
>If a easy meat replacement is what you are looking for use tempeh instead.

Never heard of it but I am looking it up now.

I've been eating vegetarian meals to get in better shape, but I am also having financial problems and this is a way to spend less money at the grocery store. Tofu is dirt cheap. Is tempeh similar in price? The grocery store also has fake meat products that retarded hipsters buy but that shit is expensive as fuck and the nutritional value of it is questionable.

[Anonymous No.17609539]

>>17609457
>freezing it before thawing,
I have tried it twice now and would recommend since it did seem to indeed give a better texture
I even boiled it to defrost and it was good

[Anonymous No.17609548]

surprised this hasn't been mentioned -

you definitely want pressed (firm) tofu, not the regular stuff

i can get it for about $8/kg at a local tofu shop

[Anonymous No.17609556]

>>17609548
really/ i am more surprised that there and been 6 replies and none of them have insutled OP or their choice of foodstuff

[Anonymous No.17609561]

i buy marinated tofu and eat it as is, like two bricks.

[Anonymous No.17609632]

Does anybody have a tofu press that they would recommend?

I feel a little bit unsanitary just leaving it between 2 plates in my kitchen sink for hours.

[Anonymous No.17609753]

>>17609507
>Is tempeh similar in price?
Similar, but more expensive than tofu. Still a far distance off from those hipster meat products though. If you think of tofu as "soybean cheese", then tempeh is "slightly fermented soybeans". The fermentation takes some time and adds some cost. But it's by no means a brand or product like those meat replacement things you see at stores.
If you are talking about meat replacements it also depends on what you want it for. If you want it for macros/price, then they are all fine, my point was just that tofu doesn't really hit quite the same texture and taste notes as meat does. You can also look into Seitan, probably the cheapest protein you can get, though it's harder to prepare well.
If zou care about price and macros, then it's something like 7€/kg dry Seitan (which becomes around 3,5€/kg wet Seitan), though to make it tasty you usually add other flours and shit. Slightly more expensive is tofu which where i live starts at 5€/kg. Then the most expensive is tempeh which should be around 6-7€/kg. All of which are cheaper than the cheapest chickenbreast at 12€/kg (though other cuts of chicken are cheaper).

Since you are talking about nutritional value, look into PDCAAS. Most plant based proteins are "incomplete" meaning your body cant absorb them the same way it can absorb meat protein. You can fix that by adding other ingredients, to provide the chemicals needed, but if you were to eat nothing except the protein itself, then 50g of meat protein are not the same as 50g plant protein.
The worst PDCAAS is probably Seitan, which, if eaten alone without other ingredients, has a value of around 0.5. That means for 100g of seitan protein you eat your body only gets 50g worth of protein it can use.
But if you eat your protein as part of a balanced meal, like a stir fry, these values will get closer and closer to 1 anyways, so don't worry about it too much. Just worth knowing about.

Picrel is some old OC I made comparin some proteins

[Anonymous No.17609766]

>>17609753
Not a fan of seitan. It's pure wheat gluten and when you cook it, it turns into rubber.

[Anonymous No.17609773]

>>17609632
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think pressing tofu is worth it. I don't think you need it if you just cook it correctly, though it does help if you cook it the wrong way. After pressing for a while I tried with and without press and didn't really notice a difference, though again I think it comes down to tofu frying technique. If you want to fry your tofu quickly and don't have time then the pressing helps I guess.
I don't have my press anymore, but any of the "twist" ones with two boards work the same. Apparently the springloaded ones are okay, but they are all made of plastic and look cheap.

[Anonymous No.17609787]

>>17609766
Yeah me neither. I've been trying a bunch of ways to make it properly but haven't found the proper way. I thought it was just technique, because for the longest time I didn't like tofu until I learned how to properly prepare it and now I love tofu, but so far all seitan dishes I made were "acceptable" at best and "I am chewing on shoesoles" at worst.
At this point I am starting to question if the people saying it totally gets like meat are just vegans that are coping and haven't had meat in so long they forgot what it's like, but I am not quite ready to give up on Seitan yet. Apparently to get it to a good state you need to mix other flours into it, work it the right way and cook it carefully. I planned on testing some more stuff out eventually with additions like chickpea flour and shit.
I really hope I manage to get it to taste good, but maybe I'll have to just accept that the ingredient is not for me.

[Anonymous No.17609794]

>>17609773
I've seen some presses that can also be used to make paneer / cheese and thought I might try it

[Anonymous No.17609852]

>>17609794
I mean if it's not going to be a unitasker, what do you really have to lose after all. And who knows maybe I am just a texture tastelet and it makes a big difference for you. For all I know I might be deranged, it's just that I don't think pressing tofu is worth it for the ways I prepare it.