Jen's Guide to Tofu Preperation
I will usually do up an entire package of tofu because really, it isn't worth having a half a wet slab sitting in the fridge when you can prep it all at once. Being tofu's nature as a sort of spongey flavour absorbant, there is a number of things one can do with it given the right sort of environment and enough time. If you're cooking for one or two, I'd recommend doing 3 or 4 different flavour batches of your tofu just so you aren't roped into cooking one type of thing all week.
The first and most important step is to get all that goddamned water out. You know what water tastes like? Nothing. I hated tofu for the longest time because places I would get it from would skip this step and instead just toss water-logged, nasty wet tofu into whatever sauce they had lying around and call it a done deal. Do not do this, you will hate yourself and whatever you make. The easiest way to do this is to slice the tofu into about half-inch wide sheets and sandwich them in a single layer between a thick kitchen towel or two and a couple paper towels, and since my kitchen towels are pretty much always sorta dirty unless I'd just washed them—as I'm sure most people's are—make sure to put the paper towels on the layer touching the tofu; this also keeps your tofu from getting linty.
Once you have your towel-tofu sandwich made, pile some heavy flat things on top of that. I usually go with a jellyroll pan with a couple heavy mixing bowls (I mean heavy, my mixing bowls are pyrex and stoneware; if you lack such heavy things, try a bunch of pots and pans). Then leave it for up to 3 or 4 hours. When you come back, you will be greeted by lovely, incredibly firm and dense slabs of tofu just ready to soak up whatever you throw at them.
Now you have a blank canvas to work with. The sky's the limit at this point.
- You can do a short soak (about 15 to 30 minutes) of your tofu in such as Bragg's Liquid Amino mixed with a little soy milk and use it as an egg substitute for vegan scrambled eggs.
- You can crumble it into bite-size chunks and soak it in salted and herbed olive oil to make vegan feta cheese.
- Soak in any pre-made, store-bought marinade you like (I recommend cutting it into cubes first).
- Cut cubes and soak for a couple hours in 4tbs Bragg's Liquid Amino and 1/4c olive oil with a combination of minced garlic, fresh chopped cilantro and shallot, then bake for a great addition to a variety of salads; or pan fry and add to burritos or tacos (you'd want small cubes for that).
- Soak for an hour in a mixture of fresh minced garlic, fresh minced ginger, sri-cha chile, toasted sesame oil and rice vinegar for a decidedly Asian flavour.
- You can even make a marinade of sweet spice (cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, ginger, cardamon, etc.), sugar and olive oil and then bake up some tasty treats (especially if you do these covered in a very hot oven—450+ degrees—they get kind of crunchy delicious).
As you can tell, it is very versitile. So go play. Make tofu your friend.
