All About Tofu (except recipes)

[karen]

I've only been at this for a few weeks. I just tried tofu for the first time last week. It was the firm kind, and I've used it in salads, chili. I've marinated and roasted it. This week my local grocer didn't have the firm, so I bought medium-firm instead. I can't slice it or crumble it. It's just a mess. What can I do with it? All the recipes I've found call for firm. Sometimes I see "silken". What is that?

[Kiva Dancer]

Silken basically means that it's a finer texture than curd style and it's more suited for making dips, smoothies, "cream" sauces and the like. Sometimes it's called kinagoshi (sp) or Japanese style. Curd style is typically in water (though not always) and sometimes is called Chinese style. The medium-firm you have doesn't really tell much cause curd and silken can come in medium-firm consistency.

[tasha]

If it is medium-firm, but more on the creammy side, you can melt some choc. chips and mix them in with it, make a pie with graham cracker crust or pudding.

Check out some of the vegan recipe sites they have lots of recipes for pies and pudding.

[veganful]

Have you tried tofu scramble?
If its a bit on the crumbly side or not it doesn't matter. At least that's what I've found to happen. In a pan put some oil fry up some sliced mushrooms with your most loved spices(some tumeric I reccoment and maybe in some nutritional yeast). After the mushroom are soft enough to your liking at the tofu. Fry until the taste of everything is combined with the tofu. Have at it with some pan roasted poatoes(paprika, garlic, salt) oil.



Ileana

[tasha]

mamamimi

I've never heard of any other way to make tofu without the soybeans.

I have heard of people using Calvatia gigantea (a type of mushroom) in place of tofu, though I have no clue where to find it or how to grow it!?

[Korn]

Hi, I just merged a number of tofu threads. We also have one about tofu ice cream. There's also some tofu talk here.

[veganful]

I am working on a recipe for fried tofu that I call "Junk Cubes" I can't make the batter stick to the tofu, any tips?

try dipping the tofu in some water/marinate(something like that) before breading it

[Liftednevermore]

Heya everyone

My most favourite food, and something I'd not even discovered prior to going vegan, is tofu. Specifically the firm kind. (Not silken.) I usually just use smoked tofu, cube it, and fry it in some garlic and soy sauce before using as a meat substitute in Stir Fries. Occasionally I do marinade it, but I only have one marinade recipe, and it's not that good because it uses tonnes of tamari. (Quite uneconomical.)

Anyone got some more interesting things to do with tofu?

[DianeVegan]

I just picked up two books from the library on tofu - I've also been rather bored recently with my recipes. I'll let you know if I find any real good ones.

Have you tried slicing, then freezing, then defrosting, then draining your tofu? It makes it more chewy and allows it to pick up marinade flavors better. Here's the marinade I use often, and then either bake or pan fry the tofu. I marinade for about 30 minutes if I've frozen the tofu or 6+ hours if not.

The following ingredients to taste:
Orange juice (or pineapple, pear, whatever you have)
Tamari or shoyu or soy or Braggs sauce
Fresh or ground ginger
Garlic
A little sesame oil
Five spice powder (if desired, but it's good without)

Either finely mince the garlic, ginger or put in a blender. Don't go too heavy on the shoyu or it gets a bit salty tasting.

Enjoy!

[Liftednevermore]

How long is it best to marinade for?

[VeganJohn]

Anyone of any good recipes, I miss my chinese take aways!!!

You can get some decent bean curd dishes from most chinese takeaways! I had an excellent one with black bean sauce last year - amazing for a takeaway.

[VeganJohn]

Bizarrely, as I was coming home from a nice walk in the country this afternoon, I was thinking 'I must post on the vegan forum and see if anyone has any inetersting tofu recipes, as I am getting board of mine'.



I fancy making some tofu ice cream in the not too distant future.

My favourite tofu was a brand I bought in a natural food store (can't remember the name), it was rather firm and was slightly smoky and made with almonds and ginger, plus several spices. It was actually more like seiten in a way.

Gorgeous though.......

[Kiva Dancer]

I am working on a recipe for fried tofu that I call "Junk Cubes" I can't make the batter stick to the tofu, any tips?

Roll them in some sort of flour first.

[VeganJohn]

I just got a copy of the Tofu Cookbook, originally published in 1992. It has a picture of a tofu raspberry cheesecake on the front and has some excellent recipes. I am looking forward to trying some of them next week when I am off on holiday. There is also a section on making your own tofu at home. All in all a great little book.

[xjohnx]

what are some good ways to prepare tofu?

[tails4wagging]

marinate it with soya sauce, mash it up.

Stir fry veg of choice, mix it with the tofu and spread over a pastry flan case and cook. Makes a good quiche.

Makes a good cheese cake. Recipe in the Tofu cookbook.

Marinate it and skewer it with veg and bbq it.

[screamingcarrot]

tofu burgers are nice.
in japan i used to eat silken tofu raw with a dash of soya sauce and a bit of picked ginger. yum!

[Cherry]

I like my tofu either deep fried with lots of chilli sauce and basil (I once had some extra firm basil flavoured tofu from a health food shop in Leeds mmmm that was so nice)

or

Marinated in soy sauce, chopped garlic and chopped/grated ginger root. Best if left in fridge for a few hours. Then I line all the pieces up in the frying pan and systematically turn them with a fork so that I know every side is brown.
I'm just fussy.

(pics on website. I quite like my tofu 'stone circle' photo)

[Cloudy]

(pics on website. I quite like my tofu 'stone circle' photo)

Hey, nice website!

[Cherry]

Thanks Cloudy I have to confess, I haven't added any recipes for a while but have a few new ones to go up soon.

Did you like the tofu photo?

[Cloudy]

Did you like the tofu photo?

Couldn't find a tofu photo!

Recipes look good though

[snaffler]

I am very lucky to have a local health food store who stocks an organic made Tofu which I think is made down in Dorset and they several varieties.

Smoked
Herb
Plain
5 different tofu burgers
5 different tofu bangers
and a variety of other tofus so much of this stuff is ready to go but now and again I always try something new.

Plain tofu chuncks still slighty moist smother them in indian spices of your choice leave for an hour to allow more flavour to sink in.

Now take some metal skewers add a few sweet cherrie tomatoes, red and white onion, green and yellow pepper mushrooms and of course the tofu.

Take a small amount of olive oil, add salt pepper and a big sprig of fine chopped corriander and drizzle of skewered veg and tofu lightly grill or BBQ.

Now whilst they are doing get some 1/2 pint of soya yoghurt, cucumber and a jar of mint, fine chop cucumber add to yoghurt and two teaspoons of mint mix well leave in fridge.

Now get some large leaf mixed salad place on plate add some of olive oil mix if you have any left, once cooked remove veg and tofu from skewers and place on mixed leaf salad and add some of the soya rhita.

Serve with wholemeal pitta bread or brown rice for a wheat free option.

[ladyaprille]

Mmmm Tofu Straight Out Of The Packet.. (not Silken) ... Mmm Especially If Its Been Frozen And Thawed... Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Robin]

I admit, Tofu is the great mystery of vegan food for me at the moment. Little squiggly cubes of white-ish stuff!

I've eaten it about twice at restaurants and it tasted nice, so I thought I should try something with it on my own.

So, here's my plea for help

What are your general tips when cooking with tofu? What kind of tofu is good for what? (I know there's differences like "soft" and "firm") What are your favourite tofu recipe? How do you protect yourself from vicious tofu out of the fridge?

EDIT: Can't believe I missed this thread...looks like some friendly mod moved me though *is off to read trough the thread*

[GloomCookie]

unfortunately despite being a veggie company, Cauldron aren't very good for vegan products. their marinated tofu chunks are lovely if you can get them though - my local Asda has them - i often eat them straight out of the packet

I'd been avoiding their tofu chunks because they have lactic acid on the ingredients?

[Gorilla]

I'd been avoiding their tofu chunks because they have lactic acid on the ingredients?

ooh, you worried me there! they do contain lactic acid, but according to Cauldron's website http://www.cauldronfoods.co.uk/produ...ch.php?t=vegan they are vegan. PHEW!

[Mr Flibble]

ooh, you worried me there! they do contain lactic acid, but according to Cauldron's website www.cauldronfoods.co.uk/product_search.php?t=vegan they are vegan. PHEW!

more often than not in my experience, lactic acid is from vegetable source

[GloomCookie]

ooh, you worried me there! they do contain lactic acid, but according to Cauldron's website www.cauldronfoods.co.uk/product_search.php?t=vegan they are vegan. PHEW!

Sorry! I should have posted that I was glad you'd posted that because it means I can eat them again... Guess what I had in my stir fry last night?

[Mr Flibble]

Sorry! I should have posted that I was glad you'd posted that because it means I can eat them again... Guess what I had in my stir fry last night?

I used to eat those things when at uni, before I found how to do it it myself for in not much time for half the cost and with much more interesting flavours (their's doesn't really go with much i've found, tastes a bit odd in curries). If you wanna spend that amount of money on tofu, there's more exciting things (such as mustard tofu, olive tofu, sesame tofu) in fresh and wild on brewer street.

[GloomCookie]

I used to eat those things when at uni, before I found how to do it it myself for in not much time for half the cost and with much more interesting flavours (their's doesn't really go with much i've found, tastes a bit odd in curries). If you wanna spend that amount of money on tofu, there's more exciting things (such as mustard tofu, olive tofu, sesame tofu) in fresh and wild on brewer street.

I go to the Fresh & Wild in Clapham - the basil tofu is quite tasty but I found the olive one disapppointing. Guess I'd rather use normal tofu and fresh olives really.

[abrennan]

Mr Flibbles right you can make your own and it will be nicer as well.

At our house we try not to buy to much pre-processed things as they are never "Fresh" in the real sense and often contain things that you don't really want to be ingesting.

antony tofu

[GloomCookie]

Mr Flibbles right you can make your own and it will be nicer as well.

At our house we try not to buy to much pre-processed things as they are never "Fresh" in the real sense and often contain things that you don't really want to be ingesting.

antony tofu

Someone give me an idea of how to marinate tofu? Or point me in the direction of a recipe?

Whenever I try it seems to go super soggy

[abrennan]

Someone give me an idea of how to marinate tofu? Or point me in the direction of a recipe?

Whenever I try it seems to go super soggy

Come on Flibble, marinate some tofu recipes for us

[Mr Flibble]

later on, in a rush atm! You wanna be marinating firm tofu, not silken thou. That could be your problem if it's mushy/watery. Couldron organic fresh stuff is good, you can get it as cheap as 99p if you shop around. The permenant price in morrisons is 1.09

[eve]

gloom cookie, using firm tofu, the first thing is to put it in your freezer overnight. Then the next day bring it out, and put it in the fridge. When ready to prepare the marinate, rinse the tofu under the tap, squeeze out all the excess water, and cut up the tofu into chunks. place in a dish and pour some soysauce and a little olive oil over the tofu. Later on, and it doesn't take hours and hours, but later on, put some olive oil in your wok or frypan, but not much at all, and braise some onion slices. Add the chunks of tofu which you have marinated. It hardly takes any cooking at all, and tastes good with some chinese peas.

[Mr Flibble]

the first thing is to put it in your freezer overnight

I think this is a personal preference. Tofu contains lots of water, and the action of freezing expands this water changing the texture of tofu to a sponge like consistancy. Whilst this no doubt makes it better at soaking up marinades, you also change the texture. I used to do this under recomendation when I first turned vegan, but personally dislike the spongy texture these days compared to unspongy.

Come on Flibble, marinate some tofu recipes for us

The simple answer is: make it up! At the laziest, cut firm drained tofu up quite
small, add a mixture of oil and soy sauce/tamari and marinade for at least 5 mins
(preferably a few hours, but upto 20 mins is good if in a rush). Then, shallow fry in a
pan with sunflower oil in.

Of course, that's a tad boring - so, experiment! If memory serves the for-mentioned stuff which is sold in a packet for 1.99 (!) is just soy sauce, ginger, sugar, salt and yeast extract, then fried in veg oil. If you're adding tofu to a casserole you can just fry (or oven bake - place on an oiled (preferably non stick) baking sheet and brush all sides with oil, turning over half way through) it in no marinade before adding - it will soak up flavours as you cook.

I actually prefer cooking fried tofu in stock these days. Last night I reconstituted 5 dried shitake in half a pint of water (about half an hour), removed the mushrooms, chopped them up and placed them and the water (now medium brown) in a pan. To this I added 1tbsp mirin (nice and sweet) and 1tbsp tamari and reduced by a third on the stove. In the meantime, washed/drained 250g fresh organic firm tofu, cut into 6 strips and pan fried in sunflower oil and a couple of tsp sesame oil until golden and puffy on each side (approx 10 mins). Once done, added the tofu (not the oil) to the shitake stock and simmered until almost all the liquid has boiled off. Served over a mixture of white thai fragrant rice, brown rice udon and whole-wheat soba noodles, with a healthy ganishing of black and white sesame seeds. Yummy - nicer than anything from a packet. Made enough for 2, but alas I ate it all myself

I go to the Fresh & Wild in Clapham

but, but, but, but. I've spent many a Sunday afternoon on clapham common over the past few summers, unaware of a clapham fresh and wild, forced to make do with Sainsburys and Cullens. Fresh and Wild piss me off. Their advertising is non existant. I even wrote to them about it. Something about them wanting to pass on savings to customers was the reply (yea right, they sell virtually nothing at decent prices! - someone's making a tonne of money but it ain't the shoppers!). Actually, it took me 4 years of being vegan and regularly visiting central London to find the brewer street one - totally by accident - referenced in the back of a book i picked up in Heals in Guildford!

[Gorilla]

Someone give me an idea of how to marinate tofu? Or point me in the direction of a recipe?

Whenever I try it seems to go super soggy

my marinated tofu never turns out very well either. it never has the same lovely texture as the Cauldron stuff. in shops round here, the marinated tofu isn't much more expensive than plain tofu anyway

[puffin]

my marinated tofu never turns out very well either. it never has the same lovely texture as the Cauldron stuff. in shops round here, the marinated tofu isn't much more expensive than plain tofu anyway

Mine doesnt either I have tried many times putting it in stir frys but it just sticks to the pan. I use the couldron marinated tofu because it is so easy. I usually put it in the sauce i make for lasagna and it keeps its firm texture.

[Mr Flibble]

Mine doesnt either I have tried many times putting it in stir frys but it just sticks to the pan.

Do you fry it first? The marinaded pieces are pre cooked, the block of plain stuff is not.

[Hemlock]

Don't freeze cauldron tofu, it goes horrible when defrosted, all full of holes and watery.

[Cherry]

Don't freeze cauldron tofu, it goes horrible when defrosted, all full of holes and watery.

Agreed! I like the extra firm tofu. I had some REALLY nice basil tofu once. Mmm. Haven't seen that since though. I'm having smokey tofu tonight.

Yes......Ent.......in......this..............age.. ..........trees............should...........avoid. ............the .......junk..........among...................food.

Totally off subject but what do you think DID happen to the Entwives?

[puffin]

Do you fry it first? The marinaded pieces are pre cooked, the block of plain stuff is not.

Last time i chopped it up into bits and put it into the wok with some hot veg oil in it. Took it out when cooked. Cooked stir fry and added the tofu at the end to warm it up again. It was sticking to the wok when i was cooking it first so all the crispy bits kept falling of

[Mr Flibble]

Last time i chopped it up into bits and put it into the wok with some hot veg oil in it. Took it out when cooked. Cooked stir fry and added the tofu at the end to warm it up again. It was sticking to the wok when i was cooking it first so all the crispy bits kept falling of

Are you using a non stick wok or one which has been properly seasoned? Are you sure you were using firm (drained and excess water squeezed out) not silken tofu? (silken is stuff that generally comes as a block in foil backed 349g packets) How deep was the oil you were using? When you shallow or deep fry tofu the whole piece you are cooking should change texture, there shouldn't really be any crispy bits on the side to fall off.

[Yogini]

The other night I made a stir fry with about 1 1/2 cups of tofu (I was hungry.) According to Fitday.com, there are 500 calories in that amount. I realize that tofu isn't exactly diet food, but that seems a bit much to me. I'd thrown out the package so I couldn't check what it said.

Does anybody know if this is accurate?

Love,
Anna

[Artichoke47]

I'm thinking it's about 90 per half a cup, but deep-fried tofu or tofu with oil would have more.

[Yogini]

I used olive oil, but I was figuring that separately. This calorie count supposedly referred to the tofu alone. I forget where it was, but I found another source which said this 1.5 cups of tofu probably had more like 300 calories, which seems more believeable to me.

Love,
Anna

[Roxy]

Here is the tofu that I buy. Click on whichever type of tofu you want and it will bring up the nutritional information.

http://www.sunrise-soya.com/sunrise.html

[Artichoke47]

I have some recipes that call for firm silken tofu or extra-firm silken tofu. As far I have been able to find at Wild Oats and elsewhere, I only have regular silken, no added adjectives of "firm" or whatever. Does anyone know if I can use regular silken or if it will be too runny? Or do Asian grocers carry firm silken tofu?

[DianeVegan]

Artichoke, my silken has firm or extra-firm on them (also from Wild Oats). I think I may have seen soft in the past but am not sure. I use firm and extra-firm interchangeably without any problems. I assume your box is firm unless otherwise stated.

Maybe this will help - both of mine are Mori-Nu brand. The firm is organic and has 60 calories (25 from fat) per 3 oz. The extra firm (not organic) has 45 calories (15 from fat) per 3 oz. It would appear as though the difference is in fat content (unlike regular tofu which is a water content difference).

Hope that helps.

[SarahM]

i switch back and forth between the diff kinds of silken - it all seems to work okay for different things

good luck!