Tofu Or Not Tofu - It's Not Even A Question

Dare I say it?

Is anyone going to care?

Okay, okay. I am being my usual asinine self again. This post doesn’t have anything to do with earthshaking, dramatic thoughts or ideas.

It’s all about tofu, also known as bean curd, and why I am on a mission to find the perfect tofu recipe.

Some people hate tofu with a passion. They regard it as something smelly and alien, soft and squishy, dry, hard, kind of wobbly or repugnantly textured. It all depends on what type of tofu they’re referring to, of course: pressed tofu, fermented tofu, silken tofu, firm tofu, the list goes on and on.

I see tofu differently. In my eyes, tofu is the perfect food. Milk can’t even hold a candle to it, even if I still love drinking milk at my age.

I relish tofu because it has so many different textures and consistencies, all the better to mix and match with various kinds of vegetables, seafood and meat.

I enjoy tofu because I can have it slow fried, deep-fried, stuffed, stewed, mixed with vegetables, made part of casseroles, turned into a shake, cooked into pudding… Hah! My stomach is producing weird boborygmi noises as I write and visualize my beloved tofu in all its incarnations.

Tofu is actually bland. I would even go as far as to say that it has no taste.

Hahahaha! I can’t help laughing at that, thinking how you must be wondering how come I am heaping praises on something that has no taste at all.

Actually, tofu does have a peculiar kind of taste, depending on what type it is. But the taste is not really overpowering like raw capsicum. It’s not even pronounced, like say, the taste of vinegar.

What tofu is, is a perfect complement or partner to various flavors.

If you mix it with seafood, the pungency of the seafood rises to the surface and rubs off on the tofu.

If you saute tofu with vegetables, in particular shiitake mushrooms, or broccoli, the resulting smell and sensation can either make you salivate or drive you out of the kitchen, depending on whether you’re a fan or foe of the bean curd.

If you deep fry tofu, make sure you only use fresh cooking oil. Never use lard for cooking. Trust me on this. The lard binds itself to the tofu and congeals like sticky cement at the roof of your mouth once you’ve taken a bite. So, use fresh cooking oil, preferably olive oil, for deep-frying tofu.

Whatever you decide upon, however, all I can say is that most local recipes that I know of, that use tofu, are all the better for its addition as an ingredient. Chinese food wouldn’t really seem the same if tofu were totally to be stricken off the menu.

Tofu is an acquired taste. You either like it or you don’t.

I’ve sure acquired it. With a passion.

That’s why I’m going to be going up and down Hong Kong to find the perfect tofu dish. And when I do find it, I’m going to beg, steal,or  bribe whoever owns the recipe, so that it becomes mine… if I can’t figure it out myself how it’s done.

Wish me luck. :D

Welcome to an opinion piece by David Garcia.

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