Cooking: yes, no, maybe

[minoanmiss]

Tonight I did some cooking. I made rice cooked with sausage and onions and Chinese seasonings, and pan-seared tofu tossed with spices and veggies and Chinese seasonings, and fresh apple cider.

The last was the simplest, requiring a mashy, a squeezy, a bottle, and apples. It tastes WONDERFUL, at least I think so. I really hope the person I made it for thinks so!

The rice unfortunately came out too salty. I ate a bowlful and now I'm listening to my blood woosh in my ears. I think I forgot to factor in the sausage when seasoning it.

Meanwhile, I hope the tofu didn't come out too salty for the person I made it for: I tried to be restrained. FWIW, I quite liked the taste I took. Here's hoping. You know, tofu is much too maligned in the US; for some reason, people who would never serve say, a chicken breast or an egg, raw and unseasoned, expect cold unseasoned firm tofu to taste good. Hot seared-brown spice-coated tofu DOES taste good.

All in all, I like being able to cook, even when a recipe doesn't come out well.

Comments

[acelightning]

Tofu isn't "raw". The soybeans are ground up and cooked to make soy milk, which is strained to get rid of the gritty residue. The liquid is then cooked again, and various salts of calcium and/or magnesium (extracted from sea water) are added to make the mixture congeal. It's very similar to cheesemaking, except the milk is coagulated by chemistry rather than fermentation.

And cold tofu can be pretty interesting. I make a dish with plain tofu (firm or extra-firm preferred), cut into small cubes, combined with roasted unsalted peanuts, dressed with a little sesame oil and soy sauce (roughly equal amounts), and served cold. Surprisingly tasty, low in sugars and high in fiber, and insanely high in protein.

[surrealestate]

I don't know about all cheeses, but many are in fact made just like tofu using a coagulant (like rennet).

And yes to what folks have said about homemade tofu. You (minoanmiss) may or may not recall that I've led tofu-making workshops, but wow, freshly made tofu is definitely a whole different beast! I never would have thought I could enjoy it plain so much.

[minoanmiss]

Homemade tofu, which I was lucky enough to have once, Is of course amazingtastic, but/and not what I usually work with.

[acelightning]

I was simplifying the process somewhat, because I didn't want to type a whole long detailed explanation. (And there is such a thing as fermented tofu, but it's not commonly known among non-Asian people.)

Fresh homemade anything is almost by definition better than any commercial version. And even things that don't have to be "made" can be like that sometimes. If you've ever eaten an egg that was laid only a day or two earlier by a pasture-fed hen, you'd hardly be able to believe that this was the same boring, bland food as a supermarket egg from an "egg factory" farm.

[minoanmiss]

True, it's not raw, I might amend my post. But I was thinking of a couple of conversations at work where people were all "eww tofu" and I thought that was sad.

Also, I love my Maillard reactions. :)

[acelightning]

A person might just as well say "eww chicken" - tofu's not a substitute or imitation of anything, it's a food in itself. But the only tofu many non-vegetarians have ever experienced is things like tofu cheesecake, tofu ice cream, scrambled tofu, or tofu hot dogs, and all of those are vile! Tofu is very different when it's not trying to pretend to be something else :-)

And I, too, love the Maillard reactions - the more browned a food is, the better I like it (despite people who make jokes about a "burnt hockey puck" when I order a well-done burger).

[lettersfromeleanorrigby]

I tend to buy the Soy Boy smoked or Tofu Lin seasoned, baked tofu. Good in rice bowls and stir fries, but because it's flavored and cooked more than the first coagulation/creation, it's also pretty good sliced cold for snacks or a super-lazy breakfast where I just need some protein.

I have never had super-fresh, artisanal tofu like the foodie press sometimes writes articles about, but I also have a bland/texture thing that makes eating white fish and cottage cheese and unseasoned ricotta cheese also a miserable experience.

Salty sounds good to me!

[minoanmiss]

I generally don't understand serving unseasoned food unless one is going for a particular effect. I've had people serve me unseasoned food that clearly was just the way they always cooked, things like boiled potatoes and white fish that cry out for supporting flavors, and because I'm polite I ate it gratefully but inside I wanted to go on a half hour lecture about ways to season food from start to finish.

[lettersfromeleanorrigby]

I was given a copy of Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat by Samin Nosrat that I have really been enjoying-- she talks all about the science, chemistry, and philosophy of seasoning your food, and what all those elements contribute to a tasty end product. It's about half-- theory-- and the rest are recipes. Most of it is stuff I already knew, but she has some neat charts of the different elements and ways of layering flavor that are different and new, and it's nice to read something where the author extols the virtues of salt at some length. : )

[minoanmiss]

A book I need to read!

[acelightning]

Me too!

[acelightning]

I usually have a small jar of Penzey's Black & Red in my purse when I go to the pagan gathering - the food there is generally quite well-prepared, but since they're serving a large group, they go light on the seasonings. I forgot to take it with me this year :-(

[minoanmiss]

AHAHAHAH that is the best thing I've ever heard. BWEE.

[acelightning]

Penzey's Black & Red is great stuff :-)

[amaebi]

I used to have a mild dislike for tofu, from which I was waked by encountering handmade tofu. It's been a long time since I've been able to have handmade tofu, but now I know that tofu is not essential that slick nonentity. There are good packaged brands, lots of them, and what showed up in the wilds of Southern Illinois in the 1970s was-- unnecessary and odd.

[minoanmiss]

Yeah, it's the serving it alone as a 'slick nonentity' thing that makes me sad. In its native lands, tofu is not just served unadorned*, but then almost nothing is (I've been reading about the cuisines of China recently, a whole galaxy of foodways to explore).

*:sometimes really fresh silken tofu is served as a custard, but that's the awesome stuff meant to be savored on its own or with a little syrup.

[acelightning]

I very heartily recommend Every Grain Of Rice, by Fuchsia Dunlop. It was recommended to me by my friend citabria, who is a culinary-school graduate; I got a copy early in the year, and I've been wearing it out ever since! That's where I got the cold cooked chicken I told you about, as well as the plain-tofu-and-peanuts I described above, along with a bunch of other wonderful things. Be advised that Ms. Dunlop lives in Sichuan Province, and has a very high tolerance for hot pepper :-)

[minoanmiss]

I'm pretty sure I've read this book, though I don't own it, and if I'm recalling the right book it is wonderful, but then that's demonstrated by the gorgeous recipes you've given me from it. :)

[acelightning]

She's written quite a few cookbooks, although this is the only one I've read so far. And what's not to like about a woman named Fuchsia?!

[julian]

i had it as a custard once in Atlanta. (With my brother-in-law's family.) It was awwwweeessssome, and I would have expected not to like it. Which just shows you, sometimes your expectations are from 30 years ago. (Or anyway, mine are.)

[minoanmiss]

Oo, that sounds amazing!

[med_cat]

Yay :)

[minoanmiss]

*beams*

[bikergeek]

I avoid tofu because my preacher told me to abjure seitan and all his works.

[minoanmiss]

WAAH-WAAH-WAAH-WAHHHHHHHHHHHH

[bikergeek]

https://sadtrombone.com/?autoplay=true

[eustaciavye77]

*pedantic* seitan is wheat,not soy.

[ororo]

I love fried tofu. I haven't eaten much tofu as my first experience with it was in a salad, unadulterated. This was sometime in the seventies and I'm sure what's available has improved now. I've been known to add it to leftovers, especially because I often have sauces that once had meat in them left over.

[minoanmiss]

Tofu works so beautifully with meat. I love making red cooked tofu and beef -- that was the most recent food I bothered my long-suffering roommates to buy for me.

Yeah, the tossed-into-a-salad thing does not make sense to me. If I were putting tofu into a salad I'd marinate the heck out of it, and probably sear it, because what's not better with some searing?

[tibicina]

There was a local place (now sadly closed) that did salads with fried tofu 'croutons'. I really miss that salad.

[sabotabby]

I don't get the hate-on for tofu. It absorbs the thing that you cook it in. If it doesn't taste good, the problem is the thing you cooked it in.

Though I did once date a person who ate tofu raw. They were a weirdo, though.

[minoanmiss]

When I was introduced to tofu they didn't even cook it in *anything* or dress it with anything or, well, anything. Poor sad naked tofu shivering on a plate.

Fortunately, I like reading about food so I soon found out about nifty ways to dress it appropriately.