Tofu... general?

Yeah I was actually pleaasantly surprised yesterday when I first had it, since I heard so many awful things about it. Sure it's dry and has next to no flavour but the texture is very nice to contrarrest wet-ass mushy veggies
This seems tasty, thx mang

bumping because i bought tofu today and i have no idea how to cook it. the package says "pressed super firm tofu"

do i slice it and cook the slices like chicken?

>and has next to no flavour
It does a nice job of absorbing marinades and sauces

>the texture is very nice
You can vary this as well, by buying tofu with different firmness.

>do i slice it and cook the slices like chicken?
Yes you could do that, extra firm slices stand up well to frying.

Dip in flour or corn starch or potato starch before frying for crispy tofu. Also helps if you microwave it beforehand and then pat dry.

youtube.com/watch?v=K_OMJP4ouVI

this is my favourite tofu recipe. This is good with firm tofu.

justonecookbook.com/mapo-tofu/

Mapo tofu is my second favourite, it's best with silky or soft tofu but I've made it with firm tofu in a pinch and it's not bad at all. Now, this is a dish with meat but the bean pastes have so much flavour already, you could easily swap the pork with something. Maybe diced mushrooms, sauteed with butter? Or maybe even add some sort of bean. And also I personally skip the oyster sauce because I'm too fucking lazy to buy a bottle, I just do some extra soy sauce.

do a thai curry with tofu

or mapo tofu

or miso soup with tofu

or a stir fry with veg and tofu

If anyone ITT has tofu production questions, I used to live on a hippy commune, and part of my work was running/operating the tofu business.

Whoa, thank you for the links. I'm excited to cook the tofu and see how it comes out.

Cut in half inch cube and marinated overnight in a Ziploc with pepper (as much as you want) and shopped up garlic with some oil. Shake well.

The next day cook some pasta but not soft let them be firm/undercooked. Fry the tofu in a pan at medium heat until crispy on a few sides (shake the pan or with a spatula) remove the tofu in a separate bowl. Cut mushroom and stir fry. Add around 500ml of medium cream in the same pan with mushroom and adjust with salt and pepper to taste

Put the noodles and the tofu in the pan and mix. Adjust with some milk or parmesan or whatever you want. Good 3-4 days in the fridge

Why would you write this and not just tell us the general gist of it

Because I'm drunk and falling asleep. Figured I'd gauge interest.

But anyway.

>grind a fuckton of soybeans that have been soaking in water overnight into a giant steam kettle
>boil the fuck out of em until you have a mash
>pump through centrifuges into large trash cans on wheels
>at this point, you have soy milk
>pour in nigari and stir in such a way that the soy milk actually curds up well (I don't know what their fucking secrets were but curding was goddamn witchcraft)
>drain off excess whey with colanders
>scoop curds into cheesecloth lined press forms
>shove under a couple ton press for about 20 minutes
>remove
>cut into ~1lb blocks
>package

The overall process is actually pretty simple but getting every step right was pretty difficult. The whole process took around 8 people working in a ~115 degree room filled with steam, and if any step of the process got fucked (like a mash that wasn't boiled long enough, a shit curding job, or an improper amount of curds in the presses) the whole production line would be fucked too.

I want to know the context of why you used to live in a commune the and the reasons why you left.

My mom gets fried tofu, stuffs it with ground pork and shrimp and cooks it in this amazing tomato sauce. Served over rice.

My favorite meal of hers.

>why you used to live in a commune

I had a couple of realizations hit me pretty quickly after starting college. I was there on a full ride for math and physics but it soon became apparent that 1) me bullshitting my way though high school made me completely inept in being able to budget my time for a 20 credit hour workload, 2) I was going to be in school for at least 8 years for something I might be good at, but would never be brilliant at, and 3) I liked working with my hands a lot more than sitting behind a desk.

I had gotten into radical politics while in high school so knew of a couple communes around the US and, after deciding to drop out, figured that was a better option than washing dishes for minimum wage. I ended up living there for three years, had some of the best times of my life, but ultimately ended up leaving when a bunch of my friends left a few months after I broke up with my girlfriend. Just didn't feel like there was much for me there anymore. Having never actually lived in the "real world" up to that point, I also figured it might be interesting to see what else was out there.

Well, shit.

What do you do now?

I learned bread baking while on the commune (among a lot of other things...dairy farming, log sawyering, woodworking, tofu production etc.) and got a baking position in a city not far from the commune after bringing in a few loaves of bread as my resume. Most of my time now is spent working on my motorcycles and hanging out with my good boy, pictured. I have a girlfriend who still lives there (different person from the ex mentioned previous) but she's only able to get out to the city about once a week.

Well, glad to hear you're doing well tofuanon

>eating soy
Don't do that

Thanks, user.

Well thanks for the dog picture, now show us some crumb shots from your loaf

Don't you have cardboard to shitpost about?

XD I LOLed WAY harder than I should have

Don't have many good crumb shots. Here's a picture of some of the loaves we make for restaurants.

And here's the crumb of one of those that's been sitting in my kitchen for a week.

Also, sorry to hijack your thread, OP.

tofu is good stuff boi

post your crumb shots here
we need serious help

Just posted there with a trip.

Tip for cooking tofu- before you do anything else, set the block in a shallow bowl or lipped plate and place about a kg of weight on top of it for half an hour or so. This presses out the liquid and leaves you with a better texture once it's cooked.

There's a lot of great Chinese recipes for tofu, but you can also prepare it the same way you would most meats. Personally I like to just cut it in cubes, toss with cumin, cayenne, salt, pepper and garlic and then pan fry it in olive oil.

Mapo tofu.
If you don't have Sichuan peppercorns and doubanjiang, substitute them for shiitake mushrooms and chili powder (it's not a perfect substitute, but at least it's something).

You can try flouring it with cornstarch, then fry it. Serve with some sauce (dashi, soysauce, sugar, mirin(optional), sake (can use water)

Or if its smooth tofu, mince some green onion , ginger put on the cold tofu, some bonito flakes if you have some and serve with soysauce.

OP here
Oh wow 40 replies, Didn't expect this thread to be alive that long,
Thanks a bunch to everyone for replying, got a bunch of cool ideas from here

You welcome

Anyone here have had stinky tofu? How is it?

It was kind of disappointing for me. Then again, I had it at a night market in Canada and not in Taiwan so it may have just not been authentic enough.

The smell is oddly sweet like rotting flesh but not horrific, in my opinion less off-putting than durian. It tastes good but I think regular fried tofu in a fermented bean sauce would be just as good.

I agree with the user that said to put it in miso soup. Or pic related, this is deep fried tofu skins. The Japanese can cook tofu and make it nice. But it is not a nice substance. I would say do this but it looks hard, so just deep fry strips of tofu and roll it into regular sushi! Deep fry it and add sugar to it, it's that disgusting.

Anyway to make fried tofu without it coming out tasting like egg whites?