eglamkowski's Journal: Slashdot Cookbook: Tofu

Sol was asking about tofu recipes. It's a good question, since I have yet to encounter any american ways of cooking tofu that produce any sort of edible result. If you want add tofu to your diet, you have to look to Asia, primarily to China, although Korea also has some good tofu recipes. So I've decided to expand my Slashdot Cookbook to include a chapter of exclusively tofu recipes.

I've posted some in the past:
Spicy Fried Tofu - deep fried, uses egg, but very tasty if you are ok with those things
Five Spice Tofu - A simple, vegetarian tofu dish
Tofu in Oyster Sauce
Mapo Tofu recipe #1 - includes meat
Mapo Tofu recipe #2 - meat here, too

But Sol is allergic to peppers, so not all of those are available to her, and she's a vegetarian and some of those have meat in them. I wrote a few days ago ideas for cooking tofu that would yield basic tofu and leafy green vegetable kind of stir-fries. They won't be the most exciting dishes you'll ever meat, but it should be decent enough to get into the menu cycle.

Over the next week or so I'm going to list some additional tofu recipes. I'm going to post them in the original format and then make some commentary on them to help out Sol, since many of them include things she is allergic to, but which might not be important to the dish or for which there are good substitutes.

So, on to the first tofu dish of this new cookbook chapter: Sweet and Sour Tofu

1/2 cup drained canned unsweetened pineapple chunks (reserve 1/3 cup juice)
1 tablespoon ketchup (or just plain old tomato sauce or paste, or you can probably safely drop it altogether if tomatoes are a problem)
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons white vinegar (or rice vinegar)
1/2 teaspoon of honey (or you can use plain old sugar)
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger (I usually mince fresh ginger, either way is fine)
2 teaspoons cooking oil
1 pound of firm tofu
8 scallions, sliced

The recipe calls for a green bell pepper and a red bell pepper, but that's hardly a necessity - there are lots of vegetables you could use here: baby corn, carrots, bok choy, bamboo, water chestnuts, snow peas. I'm thinking snow peas, baby corn and either bamboo or water chestnuts are the winning combination here, but just make your own picks and have fun :)

The recipe also calls for 1/2 cup of canned cannellini beans, but I've never used them, so that's your call.

In a medium bowl, whisk the pineapple juice, ketchup, cornstarch, soy sauce, vinegar, honey and ginger until smooth.

Heat the oil in a wok. Add the tofu and cook until lightly browned, 3-4 minutes, stirring as needed.

Add the scallion and vegetables, and cook until the vegetables are softened.

Stir in the pineapple chunks, beans and the juice mixture. Stir constantly until the sauce thickens and coats the tofu, 3-4 minutes.

Serve :)

I've given up on cooking tofu.

[Some Woman]

I found pre-cooked marinated tofu in the grocery store and haven't looked back since. I just can't seem to make edible results on my own. It's really good with peanut sauce.

thanks

[SolemnDragon]

this actually sounds REALLY good.