Kitchen Reports From Honor Rollees ‎

Until this weekend I have only tasted tofu in miso soup. I’ve never ordered it in a restaurant (always wary of the texture), nor I have prepared it at home, wary of all the specific instructions. My intention: To see how tofu would work as a meat substitute at dinner. Here’s what I did:

I bought a 14oz package of tofu made by a local company for $1.37 including tax. I drained the tofu with two plates and several textbooks for about 40 minutes.

Then I soaked it in a soy-ginger marinade (2 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons lime juice, 1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup peanut oil, 2 minced garlic cloves, 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, minced, and pepper) for about an hour.

Panfried, it cooked quickly and looked like a french toast stick in the pan. The tofu ended up being a little crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. It did not pick up the flavor of the marinade quite like I expected. I’m unsure if I drained it well enough or if maybe the oil in the marinade stopped the tofu from absorbing the flavor.

But on the flip side, the texture was not nearly as frightening or off-putting as I had imagined it to be. We served it with steamed bok choy and steamed rice. I’m not sure at this point I could easily substitute it for meat as a focus of a meal, but the next time I plan to stir-fry, I will definitely use it in place of meat. Given the low cost, I can easily afford to keep experimenting with tofu to see what will work well.

The Novice
Ilene Arnsdorf, part time food writer and vegetarian, is currently working as a teacher in Washington D.C. You can read more about her at You Only Get Three Meals a Day.

Let me preface this treatise by saying that in no way, shape, or form do I come from a vegetarian family. My mother, grandmother and great aunt — the culinary gurus of my family — all cook from a traditional Ashkenazic Jewish tradition, or in other words, “Would you like your chicken matzoh ball soup with a side of salmon or roast beef?”

But in the fall of 2003, I was a freshman at Cornell University, where I was left to fend for myself in the immense dining halls of the Big Red campus. I can’t speak for other campuses, but the salad bar at Cornell was green and fresh, and was always stocked with a variety of different ingredients. It was here that I first came across tofu, cut into perfectly square dice. Perhaps my palate is more tolerant than most, but I found it to be a delicious, light (while still filling), addition to my salads.

For the duration of my college years, I only remember continuing to use tofu in the more obvious ways — as a last-minute addition to a stir fry or occasionally tucked into an omelet. Not until a few years later, after graduating from Cornell, that my cooking repertoire really took off.

I moved to Phoenix, Ariz., for a Teach for America program. I’m not exactly sure what prompted my transformation, but all of a sudden I was cooking more and more, and the more I cooked, the more I liked it. The more food journals and cookbooks I read, the more I found that I wanted to make, and the more I made, the easier it became.

Slowly, without even realizing it, I began phasing meat out of my diet. I found it so much easier and more satisfying to whip up a batch of roasted vegetables, tossed with virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic, or a quick quinoa salad than to spend time knuckle deep in a piece of fish or chicken.

One of the things that I love about tofu is: it’s bland! That might sound strange, but that just means you can add it to everything, and it will taste good.

Some of my favorite ways to use tofu:

Added to a big pot of soup, either pan fried before or just tossed in while the soup cooks. Heidi Swanson has a good Vegetarian Tortilla Soup recipe to which I added tofu. I have also added it to Moosewood’s Spicy Mexican Stew (Butternut Squash and Peppers!) as well as Nava Atlas’ Curried Coconut Stew!

As extra protein in a stir fry, whether it be egg fried rice or pineapple cashew stir fry (also a good one from 101cookbooks or from Veganomicon!)

Kim’s Jamaican Jerk Tofu is a tried and true favorite! I press the tofu, and then do a rub with cumin, cinnamon, coriander, and cayenne. Then I pan fry it, and serve it in a salad with lettuce, cucumber, tomato, black beans and avocadoes.

I have brought many of these lunches to work on any number of occasions, and I have definitely had more than one co-worker approach me and ogle jealously at my lunch, asking, “WOW, what is that?!?”

Cooking with tofu provides so many delicious and healthy options, and I feel good for taking the steps to prepare delicious food for myself that will feed my body and keep it healthy and strong!