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Tussling with Tofu

Off in real life, doctors are messing with me.

One of the ways they’re messing with me is to say, “You can no longer eat most of the very few food items you actually tolerate in the first place.  Eat Other Things.”

There really aren’t that very many Other Things left.

Out of desperation, yesterday I turned to tofu.

I had read about frying slices, and that seemed within my time and energy allowance to do.  (I call them “units of function.”  I have a severe “units of function drought” at the moment, which seems entirely unfair given that there’s also a severe “units of water” drought in process, too.)

What no one mentioned about frying slices in that article was that there is nothing splatterier than frying tofu.  Especially if you’ve included a little steak sauce coating for the rubbery little suckers in a desperate attempt to add, you know, flavor.

The kitchen and I ended up with a brand new malady, one I’ll call Steak Sauce Measles.  I didn’t realize until yesterday what a unique nature steak sauce has when heated and splattered.  It turned impervious to sponge and water, although it smeared across surfaces like a champ, expanding to cover much more square inchage than one would ever imagine possible.

Sadly, the resulting fried tofu didn’t make any marvelous transformation in taste or texture.  I ate some for lunch and put the rest in the fridge, where I’m giving it the wary eye every time I open the door.

Worse yet, I think it’s giving me the wary eye back.

Any Tofu Tamers out there?  Maybe you know the secret…

(Me, I think I’m going to go push that container to the back of the fridge…)

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2012 at 04:00 and is filed under Behind the Scenes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

  • Gareth

    Marinade it for a few hours, I chop some garlic, maybe a chilli, grate some ginger, and add some soy/tamari. It soaks up the flavour wonderfully. Doesn’t need frying much, just add it to your stir fry and warm it through

  • Marty

    In a vegetarian phase, I had a lady friend who could make a tofu lasagna that tasted *much* better than your typical plate. I still miss that.
    Keep in mind that there are basically 3 consistencies of tofu. Try a firmer style for frying.
    And peanut oil, or such. Save the flavor for after (except garlic). Steak sauce in a frying pan? Bad idea. Don’t blame the tofu.

  • Marty

    Oh, and don’t push the tofu to the back of the fridge, just toss it. Dying tofu gets mean, bullies the condiments for lunch money.

  • Tina

    I have enjoyed fried tofu, but mostly because of the spicy sauce served with it. (Family Style Beancurd, yum) The tofu itself is bland, and frying gives it a skin, for variety in texture. I like tofu in soup, with other things. Like vegetables. Not knowing which Things are left for you to eat, I don’t know if there are enough to make soup, but that is the way I would go. Tofu comes in levels of firmness; don’t suffer with a texture you don’t like until you’ve tried others.

  • Patty

    Tofu turkey?

  • http://www.doranna.net Doranna

    Patty, I haven’t tried Tofu Turkey. Would be interesting, though!

  • http://www.doranna.net Doranna

    Marty, the steak sauce made clean-up harder, but the tofu made all the spitties and its other various fails. This was the firmest kind. I did just read that one should drain and freeze it in order to *really* firm it up, so I’ll try that with the stuff I have left. Though it really didn’t sit well, so…maybe not. (Only out of stubbornness…)

    Gareth–unfortunately, I can’t eat most of the stuff in that marinade, or the other tofu marinades I’ve seen here and there. I was frying to add some sort of texture to the crust, plus the crispy parts had some extra flavor to them.

    Tina, I might be able to cut it up into soup. 8) There’s a soup or two I can still have.

    (One hopes these restrictions will ease, but at this point the intersection between what I can eat and what I can stomach and what balances proteins/carbs is pretty small. On Monday, the doc took away my building block food group, so…ugh…)

  • Marilyn

    Can’t help you with tofu cooking. I’am anaphylactic to anything soy, and for some odd reason, I really LIKE breathing. So I don’t go anywhere NEAR tofu.

    If you have a sensitivity to, say, corn, one thing to keep an eye out for is corn-fed (or finished) meats, eggs, and dairy. It’s not common, but I’ve known people who could only tolerate grass-fed and grass-finished stuff, and eggs from birds which weren’t fed whatever it was they were sensitive too.

  • Giselle

    Doranna, if you are looking at vegetarian options, you’ll want to peruse this blog;
    http://www.101cookbooks.com/ingredient/tofu

    Lovely site and beautiful food.

    And, yes, I agree with Marilyn above – if you are reacting to what commercial feed lot animals are fed, like corn and soy (which are not species appropriate for them either) so look for grass fed/pastured AND finished meats.
    Goat is often pastured, as is lamb.

    Or wild caught meats – venison, feral pig, game birds…..

  • Giselle

    Ooh, and soy is in so MANY foods and products – vitamin E, used as a preservative, is soy derived.
    Anything that has added tocopherols or mixed tocopherols, is soy.

  • http://www.doranna.net Doranna

    Yii. I do seem to not do so well with soy, to judge by recent yogurt excursions and now this tofu. It makes a grumbly in my tumbly.