One of the best meals I had in San Francisco (and I had a lot of great meals) was the first one: tofu stew at a Korean tofu house in Japantown. As I promised at the time, I decided to replicate it tonight.

There aren’t many vegan recipes for soon tubu jjigae on the internet, in fact, I didn’t find any. Everyone seems to want to put clam juice, beef, and shrimp in it. And egg. But none of that stuff is necessary. The important features of soon tubu jjigage are 1) tofu and 2) spiciness, both of which I can produce in spades.

The first thing you need to consider is your tofu. I wouldn’t dream of making soon tubu jjigage with anything but homemade tofu. The tofu is just too big a part of the dish and I’m used to homemade. So I have to urge you to try making it yourself. I ordinarily make an extremely firm tofu, using as much coagulant as I can get away with without it turning bitter and pressing it under about 25 pounds. Because I wanted a much softer tofu for the stew, I cut back on the amount of coagulant I used (I used nigari as usual, but if I’d been thinking more clearly, I’d have used the calcium sulfate I have because it makes a softer tofu AND adds calcium), and I used just 1.5 pounds (a new bottle of agave nectar, to be precise) to press it.

If you simply can not be bothered to make your own tofu, buy fresh soft tofu from an Asian market if at all possible. If you can’t find fresh, buy the best soft tofu you can find at an Asian market. Sometimes it comes in tubes and it’s usually in the produce department. If you don’t live near an Asian market, you can resort to using silken tofu in a box.

Soon Tubu Jjigae

3 1/2 cups water
1 4″x4″ square kombu
1/4 cup dulse, snipped into bite-size pieces with kitchen shears (optional)
1 handful arame (optional)
2 tsp vegan chicken bouillon (or enough to flavor 4 cups of water at half-strength)
1 Tbsp Korean red pepper powder
6 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp sesame oil
1/2 cup cold water
3 Tbsp arrowroot
6 Tbsp gochujang (Korean chili pepper paste) (Susan V of Fat-Free Vegan has a substitute you can make if you don’t live near a Korean grocery store in this post, but get the real deal if at all possible.)
1 cup cabbage kimchi
2 carrots, julienned or shredded
1 pound soft tofu, preferably homemade
1/2 bunch scallions, chopped

Place the seaweed(s) in a soup pot with the 3 1/2 cups of water and simmer for 10 minutes.

Remove the kombu. (You can chop it up into bite-sized pieces and put it back in if you wish.) Add the garlic, red pepper powder, soy sauce, sesame oil, and “chicken” bouillon. Simmer for five minutes.

Mix the cold water and arrowroot together in a small bowl, whisking to ensure there are no lumps, then add to the soup. Add the gochujang, whisking to make sure it is dissolved. Simmer for another five minutes.

Add the kimchi and carrots.

Chop the tofu into 8 large pieces.

Add the tofu to the stew.

Stir the tofu into the stew, allowing it to break up a little bit, but mostly maintaining the chunks.

Simmer for 5 more minutes, then add the scallions.

Raise the heat a little and cook for another couple of minutes. In restaurants, soon tubu jjigae arrives to your table very, very hot, so let it get very bubbly.

I served the soon tubu jjigae in individual-sized cast iron pots, which even have lids to keep the stew warm while I run around taking photographs. Here’s one of the pots:

Mark was fascinated by the “little cauldrons”.

Serve with several banchan.

The verdict on this one was very good. Mark commented that he tasted “several layers of flavor, followed by a nice spiciness.” He proceeded to clean his cauldron, then steal tofu from mine. Afterwards he told me to announce it had the Mark Seal of Approval.

Brachtune doesn’t care much for tofu, or stew for that matter, but she does love chopsticks.

Tigger prefers red pepper.

(His fur is wet because he took a little shower in the kitchen sink. He’s very weird.)

A fact about me: I’m from Baltimore, hon. Which means that although I haven’t eaten a crab in 20 years, I know that if you don’t put Old Bay on them, you aren’t doing it right. It also means that I miss eating crabs from time to time. Not so much any more, in fact, they kind of gross me out these days, but I totally miss crabs more than, say, steak.

So when I was rooting through some old family stuff and came across a newspaper clipping for an Imperial Deviled Crab recipe, the gears in my brain started churning. Could I? Possibly? Should I even dare attempt to veganize a recipe chock full of seafood, cream, butter, and eggs?!

Yes! Yes, I should!

I’m not sure how old this clipping is but I’m nearly certain it came from The Baltimore Sun. It says it’s the Rennert Hotel’s recipe and originally came from a book called Eat, Drink and Be Merry in Maryland by Frederick Steiff published in 1931.

Here’s the original recipe in its quaint little imprecise format:

Simmer the flakes of 2 crabs and 1/2 a chopped onion in butter, season with salt and cayenne pepper, add 2 cups of thick cream sauce, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, a teaspoonful of English mustard, a little chopped chives, bring to a boil and bind with the yolks of 2 eggs. Add a little green and Spanish pepper chopped fine. Fill crab shells, spread a little French mustard and a sprinkle of bread crumbs over the top. Place a small piece of butter on each and bake in the oven until brown (15 to 20 minutes). Serve with lemon.

My first challenge was the crab itself. I had a block of homemade tofu that needed to be used today or else, so tofu crab it was. But I didn’t want to spend all day marinading it in something to make it taste seafoodish. So I did the following, which was all just on impulse more than for any thought-out reason.

Tofu Crabmeat

The only tofu I had was already in the pot cooking so I had to use a stand-in in the ingredient photograph.

1 lb tofu (pressed unless it is homemade and very firm)
4 cups water
1/4 cup dulse
1 Tbsp MSG (I got this idea from the UnSeafood recipes in Simply Heavenly!, but you can just omit it)
1 tsp kelp powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp Old Bay
1 tsp dry mustard

The reason for the Old Bay is Old Bay is necessary for crabs, period. The reason for the mustard is there is this stuff in crabs called the “mustard”, which looks and I guess tastes sort of mustardy (and what it really is is pretty gross), so mustard just seemed appropriate.

Anyway, put all ingredients except the tofu into a pressure cooker and bring to a boil. Cut the tofu into four slabs as depicted in this photo:

Put the tofu into the pressure cooker as well …

… and bring up to pressure, then cook for 20 minutes. Bring the pressure back down by placing the pot in the sink and running cold water over it before removing the lid. Remove the tofu …

… and dice it.

At this point I felt the texture of the tofu was interesting, but maybe not quite as firm as I wanted it. So I microwaved it for two minutes, which did seem to firm it up a bit.

The funny part about making the tofu crab is I didn’t tell Mark anything at all about my intentions. He had no idea what was in store for dinner. But he came into the kitchen while the tofu was in the pressure cooker and exclaimed, “Are you cooking crabs!?” So it sure smelled authentic! That might be because crabs smell like Old Bay, of course. But with the seaweed as well, it did smell very seafood-y and crabby. And since olfactory senses are very tightly tied to the sense of taste, that’s half the battle right there!

The next step was making the “thick cream sauce” mandated by the recipe. I’m not a big lover of rich, heavy cream in savory dishes (or even sweet dishes for that matter). Fettucine Alfredo and the likes just aren’t for me, so I don’t really have a go-to recipe for heavy cream sauces. What I did have on-hand was some MimicCreme because I use it in ice cream. So here is what I threw together for the “thick cream sauce”:

Thick Vegan Savory Cream Sauce

1 Tbsp Earth Balance or other vegan margarine
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups unsweetened MimicCreme
1 tsp vegan “chicken” bouillon

In a small but heavy pot, melt the margarine. Then whisk in the flour to make a roux.

Add the salt and the MimicCreme, whisking constantly until completely smooth. Bring to a simmer and add the bouillon. Continue whisking until smooth and thickened.

Okay! With those two hurdles out of the way, I was ready to embark on the real adventure!

Imperial Deviled Tofu

1 large shallot or 1/2 onion, diced
1 pound tofu crab meat (recipe above)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp chives, chopped
1/2 green pepper, diced
1/4 cup pimento, diced
1 Tbsp vegan Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp dry mustard
1 recipe thick vegan savory cream sauce (recipe above)
egg replacer for 1 egg (I used En-R-G)
1 cup bread crumbs (I used panko), divided
2 Tbsp dijon mustard
sweet paprika, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

My cast iron skillet is a getting a workout lately, isn’t it?! So…in a large skillet, heat a small amount of oil or margarine, then add shallots or onion and fry for a minute. Add the tofu “crab”, salt, and cayenne pepper, frying until shallots are soft, about 5 minutes.

Add the chives, Worcestershire sauce, dry mustard, green pepper and pimento.

Fry for 2 minutes. Add the cream sauce.

Bring to a simmer and add the egg replacer. When it thickens, stir in 1/2 cup of the bread crumbs.

Remove from heat and divide amongst two ramekins or other individually-sized serving dishes. Top each with half of the remaining bread crumbs, spread each with 1 Tbsp of the dijon mustard, and sprinkle each with paprika.

Cook for 20 minutes or until brown and crispy on top.

And here it is plated:

Verdict from Smark? Well, he’s busy killing something in World of Warcraft tonight, so he’s eating down in his man-cave. He came up to get a helping of the crab dish and took a bite before going back down. “It’s really good,” he said, “but not as good as what you made Saturday night.” Well, I could handle that, I thought. Mark doesn’t lie, at least not convincingly, about my food, so if he said it was good, I figured it was good enough to post here.

But guess what? Before I had even finished photographing my meal for you and sitting down to eat myself (with Tigger and a book), Smark resurfaced, announcing, “This was so good I need a second serving!”” he said. “Are you revising your earlier opinion?” I asked. “Yes! The ‘crab’ is really, really good! It tastes like real crab – I think. The texture is great!”

So with that, I think it moved into the realm of “would make again”. I might try to perfect the tofu crab recipe. Since I make my own tofu, I’m thinking I can infuse it with seafoody flavors while I’m making it. Sounds like a pretty fun experiment, eh?

By the way, one of Tigger’s favorite places to sleep is Mark’s laptop bag. It’s his little nest.

I’m really lucky I married someone who loves Tigger as much as I do.

At the nearby sushi restaurant, I often order tofu teriyaki, which they will make spicy upon request. I love spicy. Although we go to this restaurant many Fridays, I had tofu I needed to use up this week and decided I’d try to make something similar myself. My attempt turned out similar to the restaurant’s, although my tofu, which I baked instead of frying, was much crispier than theirs.

First you need to make the spicy teriyaki sauce, which you can use on many things other than this dish. Here is how you do it:

Spicy Teriyaki Sauce

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup mirin
2 Tbsp agave nectar
3 cloves garlic, pressed
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, grated
sriracha sauce to taste

Mix all ingredients together.

You would eliminate the sriracha if you wanted regular, non-spicy teriyaki. But what’s the fun in that?

I also wanted you to see how nicely my Pyrex bowl (which used to be my mother’s) goes with the sriracha bottle.

Spicy Teriyaki Tofu with Vegetables

1 pound tofu, sliced into triangles
1 cup panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
1/2 cup soy milk or water
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 crown of broccoli, cut into florets
1 carrot, julienned
1 green pepper, julienned
1/2 white onion, sliced
3 scallions, chopped
1 Tbsp sesame seeds
1 cup spicy teriyaki sauce

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Slice the tofu into triangles. I cut mine in half lengthwise, but I make a very firm and therefore very flat tofu. You may be able to slice yours in thirds or quarters lengthwise.

Create an “assembly” line for the breading of the tofu. In a small bowl, place the cornstarch, and in another the soymilk or water. I went all wacky and used a mix of water and sake, myself. It looks like soymilk here because the cornstarch got into it. I also used whole wheat panko, which I have only just begun seeing. Panko is usually white. The white stuff in this panko is cornstarch again. I got cornstarch all over the place last night.

Dip each tofu triangle into the cornstarch, shake off the excess, then dip into the soymilk or water. Finally roll it around in the panko. It helps to use one hand for dry ingredients and the other for wet. As you finish each triangle, place on a baking sheet. They don’t have to look pretty; you’re just going to be pouring sauce over them later. (Whole wheat panko seems to be a little harder to work with than regular panko, or maybe it’s just more obvious because it’s not the same color of the tofu you’re breading.)

Spray lightly with oil (optionally) and place in the oven and bake until crispy, about 30 minutes, flipping halfway through.

Meanwhile, steam the broccoli. You can just stir-fry the broccoli with the other ingredients, but I prefer to steam it lightly first and just fry for a minute or so. I think it has a better texture that way.

Prepare all other veggies.

In a large saute pan or a wok, heat a small amount of oil (I used peanut with a splash of sesame oil), then add the onions. Fry for 2 minutes, then add peppers. Fry for 1 minute and add carrots. Fry for 1 minute, then add scallions.

Add the steamed broccoli and fry for another minute.

Add the sesame seeds about about a third of the sauce. You don’t want to drown the veggies in the sauce, you want them sort of delicately flavored with the sauce. Stir for a minute or two until the sauce cooks down.

Remove the veggies from the pan or wok and set aside. Add the baked tofu to pan or wok.

Pour about half of the remaining sauce over the tofu and stir to cover. You don’t need to coat the tofu completely with the sauce, you just want to soften the breading a little bit.

Serve with sushi rice. Spoon the remaining teriyaki sauce over the tofu on individual plates.

By the way, I owe you a sourdough bread tutorial and I’ve been very bad about getting it up. However, I’m about to hit the pool, so I’m going to continue to be bad. I’m off all this week, though, in order to entertain my dear friend from Australia, who is arriving on Monday, so I should have plenty of time for posting!

When I realized this morning that I had half a pound of tofu that needed to be used ASAP, leftover tortillas, and potatoes that also needed to be used up, breakfast burritos suddenly seemed inevitable. I didn’t document them for you, though, because I was busy documenting something else for you (coming soon!) as well as making tempeh at the same time, and I had no idea how they were going to turn out because I don’t know if I’ve ever even made a breakfast burrito before. I don’t make a lot of breakfast foods. But then Mark popped into the kitchen requesting a second burrito, exclaiming that they were “as the Italians say, ‘excellente'” and asking me if I was planning to write the recipe up for the blog. I said no, but then I decided that since he liked them so much and since it’s a great way to use up leftover tofu on Saturday mornings when I make the next week’s batch, I might as well write it up for no other reason than to remind myself what I did for next time. So apologies for the lack of photos. Once I decided I would write it up, I did take a picture of what remained of my burrito (I cut off the tooth marks out of politeness), but it turned out lousy.

Breakfast Burritos

Makes 3-4 burritos

2 small potatoes, small dice
1 large or 2 small shallots, or 1/2 small onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
1/2 tsp Mexican oregano
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 pound tofu, crumbled
1/4 cup green salsa
hot sauce to taste
vegan cheese (optional)
1/2 can refried beans

Boil the potatoes in a pot of water until soft. While potatoes are cooking, prep the other ingredients. In a large skillet, heat some oil, then add shallots or onions. Saute for one minute. Add garlic and spices and saute for another minute. Add cooked potatoes and fry until beginning to brown. Add tofu and stir in gently. Add salsa, hot sauce, and optional “cheese”. For the cheese, I mixed a few tablespoons of Dragonfly’s Bulk, Dry Uncheese Mix with an equal amount of water, stuck it in the microwave for a minute, then stirred in 1 tsp of dijon mustard. You could also just toss some nutritional yeast into the skillet and mix it in.

To assemble, heat the tortillas up, the smear each with some of the refried beans. Then add some of the tofu/potato mixture and roll up.

Here’s my crappy photo:

Since I subjected you to such a horrible photo, I will share a photo of Tigger helping me make the item I’m currently documenting for a post later today:

He’s such a handsome boy.

Now I’m going swimming! But I will be back later today with a tutorial that’s been five days in the making!

The last time I failed to post for several days in a row, I had the excuse of being extremely busy. This time my excuse is exactly the opposite. There is a direct correlation between the day they finally fixed my pool filter and the day I stopped having anything to post here. I’ve pretty much been either swimming in the pool, or floating atop it in my inflatable barge, reading a book. In short, doing nothing. Dinner’s been a rushed affair every night as I’ve been making up for all the swimtime I’ve lost while the filter was broken. Although I don’t have any exciting food to share with you, my weekend has been pretty idyllic.

I did spend all of Saturday morning in the kitchen, though. It was a soy extravaganza on Saturday, in fact. I recently purchased The New Farm cookbook to see if it held any secrets that would help with my tempeh-making. I made tempeh per its instructions (the main difference being that I cooked the soybeans for an hour an a half instead of just half an hour or so). Success!!

I think the problem last time was definitely cramming too many beans into the baggie. I’ll just have to weigh them from now on and make sure it’s exactly 8 ounces of dried beans, which results in the perfect amount for one sandwich-sized bag. I used a higher quality, thicker baggie this time and not only was it much easier to pierce it with the needle, but I was able to remove the tempeh without cutting it, so I will be able to reuse it.

In other soy news, I’ve been noticing that when I make soy milk, the liquid drains through the okara bag that came with my tofu press faster than it does the bag I made myself out of muslin, which I concluded was because the weave of my muslin was tighter than that in the other bag, and since the faster the liquid drains, the easier it is, I’ve been wanting to find a fabric even more loosely woven. So Friday night I went to the fabric store and discovered chiffon.

If you’ve ever been a bridesmaid, you may recognize chiffon as the stuff the bride made you wrap 200 tiny plastic bottles of bubbles, or Hershey kisses, or other wedding favors in. (No one had to wrap anything in chiffon for my wedding because my entire bridal party consisted of Fortinbras traipsing down the aisle carrying our rings on a wedding stick as we said our vows before all of six witnesses in a Scottish castle. I wore black, Mark wore a kilt, and there was no chiffon in sight!)

I may not have been interested in chiffon for bridal reasons, but I’m here to tell you it makes a great okara bag! Because it is slippery, it’s a bit of pain to sew, but it’s worth the small amount of trouble. The soy milk filtered right through it, and with just a couple gentle presses with potato masher, I had extremely dry okara. Not only that, but cleanup was a breeze! My other okara bags never get really clean, but the okara just slides right off the chiffon! And it dries very quickly. I also used a piece of chiffon to line my tofu press when I made the weekly tofu. This worked well because not only did the whey drain through it rapidly, making a firmer tofu faster, but it’s not as bulky as the big piece of muslin I had been using.

I think my tofu should marry my tempeh!!

Another new thing I’ve incorporated into the soy milk-making process is the Multiquick. It had never occurred to me to use an immersion blender to grind the soybeans; I guess I didn’t think they were powerful enough to do it. But one of the reviewers on Amazon said she used hers when making soy milk, so I tried it out, and it worked fine. So after they are finished soaking, I pour off the soaking water, add fresh water to cover, and blend them right in the same bowl I soaked them in. This is particularly helpful when making more than a quart of soy milk because I used to have to do it in batches in the regular blender.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m ashamed of how wasteful I am when I make soy milk and tofu. Because I haven’t had much success using okara, I usually just throw it away. Same with the whey when making tofu. This weekend, though, since the chiffon afforded me the opportunity to extract so much liquid from my okara with very little effort, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to dry it as suggested by Maki at Just Hungry. So I spread it on a pan …

… and baked it at the lowest temperature my oven allows (170 degrees Fahrenheit) until it was completely dried out. I’m not sure how long it ended up taking because I sort of did it in cycles, being “busy” in the pool most of the day. It was maybe 1.5 hours total?

Then I ground it up.

Now I will do something with it. I think Bryanna was discussing dried okara as a parmesan substitute recently; I’ll probably give that a whirl. Maki suggests using dried okara in baked goods, but ugh, I’m so disgusted with using soy byproducts in baked goods! I’ve tried using okara before and it turned my bread into bricks! I wasn’t using dried okara, and Maki claims the texture is much better with dried, but after baking a brick this weekend using whey leftover from making tofu – because the New Farm cookbook said it was good to add to bread – I’m about ready to claim that soy products have no place in bread!

I’ve become a bit of a bread snob; I rarely bake any “straight doughs”, that is, dough made and baked all at once, with no pre-ferments or sponges. But since I was too busy Friday night playing with my chiffon to put together my usual doughs to bake on Saturday, I decided to try the whole wheat recipe in the New Farm cookbook (which, as you can see, has gotten a lot of use since I got it), and at New Farm’s recommendation, I added some of the tofu whey.

Big mistake! It didn’t proof very well, which was the first sign that things were going badly, but I thought maybe I’d just put it in too large a loaf pan. But when I removed it from the oven, I recognized that signature pale, deathly color I’d seen in my previous attempts to use okara in bread. Look at it, it looks sick:

I hadn’t mentioned my whey trial to Mark, from whom I have to hide fresh bread if I don’t want it devoured within two minutes, and who cut himself a slice after it cooled. He took a bite and promptly came to me with a skeptical look on his face, asking me to taste it and tell him if it tasted, well, tasteless. It did. It tasted like cardboard. Mark threw the slice away in disgust.

So today, I decided to bake the same bread, but without whey. Look at the difference:

Now, to be fair, the bigger loaf was much better kneaded, because my mixer crapped out on the bad loaf before it was fully kneaded, and due to an injury sustained while making the okara bags the night before (my thumb tangled with a rotary cutter and lost – ouch!), I wasn’t able to knead it by hand very effectively.

So, speaking of the New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook, on Thursday night, I was making Vegan Dad’s Green Enchiladas and decided that instead of using my usual “cheese” recipe from Simply Heavenly!, I would flip through the New Farm book to see if they had any “cheese” recipes I could try out. I found one and was shocked to find myself looking at the very recipe I almost always use from Simply Heavenly! I don’t want to say Abbott George Burke is a plagiarist, and I honestly think most of his 1,400 recipes are original, but I just found this weird:

I have made the recipe on the right so many times I have it memorized, so I recognized it the instant I saw it in the New Farm cookbook…which was published 22 years before Simply Heavenly. Incidentally, although I feel lost, confused, and misled – like I did when I realized that Bauhaus’s song Telegram Sam was really a T.Rex song – I actually recommend the “Simply Heavenly” version because it uses 1/4 the amount of margarine (it’s the only difference!), and it’s plenty. Also, this “cheese” was really good in Vegan Dad’s enchiladas, which you really must make. Mark has been absolutely rhapsodizing about them ever since. I’m a bit afraid he prefers Vegan Dad’s recipes to my own! I guess if I’m second best to anyone, Vegan Dad might as well be the one.

Whew…that was a lot of jabbering on my part without posting a recipe! I’m sorry I don’t have anything for you, especially after deserting you for so many days. I can show you a picture of the Sweet and Sour Tempeh I made tonight:

It’s from – surprise! – the New Farm cookbook. I’m probably the last vegan on the planet to buy this cookbook; it’s been on my wishlist forever, but I just never got around to it. Maybe because I think I have half of it in the form of printouts of recipes that have been posted on various websites, forums, and mailing lists over the years. So I guess it’s about damn time I bought a proper version of it. I was surprised to realize, too, that Tofu Cookery, which I have had for years, is also by Louise Hagler and the folks at the Farm. I had no idea!

That’s all the food news from nowhere. Here is a picture of a turtle we rescued from the pool yesterday, though:

Isn’t he great? I named him Prince Harry. I don’t know why I named him that because I have no special interest in the royal family and in fact can’t tell Harry from William, but that’s the name that popped into my head. Prince Harry didn’t think much of me, I’m afraid. He was so eager to get away from me and my animal paparazzi tendencies that he walked right into a chain link fence and had to be helped by Mark, who relocated him to a safe place. Then Prince Harry toddled off somewhere as far away from me as he could get.

I discovered wild raspberries growing by the pool as well.

Now that I’ve finally gotten around to explaining how to make tofu, I can share one of my favorite tofu recipes with you. It’s particularly good with fresh, homemade tofu, but you can easily use store-bought instead. One of the reasons I make my own tofu is I make it so firm that I can stir-fry it in a wok without it breaking up, which I can’t do with even extra-firm tofu that I’ve pressed. If you buy tofu instead of making it, buy the firmest you can get, wrap it in a tea towel, and press it under a heavy weight or book for half an hour.

Spicy Tofu

1 lb extra-firm tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/4 cup sweet chili sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
6 cloves garlic, pressed
3-6 dried chili peppers, or red pepper flakes to taste
4 scallions, chopped
2 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds, divided
3 Tbsp cornstarch

Mix the chili sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and one tablespoon of the sesame seeds together in a small bowl. If you are using dried chili peppers, rip the stems off and pour the seeds into the sauce, then toss the peppers into the sauce; otherwise, add the red pepper flakes to taste. Set aside.

Chop the tofu into 1″ blocks. Place the cornstarch into a flat-bottomed bowl and add the tofu cubes, tossing them to coat. You may find it easier to do this in two batches. (The tofu cubes are not entirely coated in the photo.)

Heat 1-2 Tbsp oil in a wok over medium-high heat. When hot, add the tofu cubes:

Stir-fry until golden on all sides, then add half the scallions and stir-fry for one minute. Add the sauce to the wok:

Let the sauce simmer down for a minute or two, then stir in the additional scallions and sesame seeds.

Serve with rice.

Well, my husband and I have just returned from a week at the beach (where internet access was next to nonexistent) and I’m feeling rejuvenated enough to finally get around to writing up that tofu tutorial I promised yonks ago. OK, really I made a tofu dish for dinner tonight that I’d like to write up and figured I’d better tell you how to make tofu before I tell you how to use it. Not that you can’t use store-bought tofu for my recipe, which I suspect 99% of the world will do, but if you are enterprising enough to make your own tofu via my method, your reward will be tofu firm enough to stir-fry! Regular tofu, even extra-firm, often falls apart in the wok, and one of the great things about making your own is you can out-firm the so-called extra-firm. (I’ll stop abusing hyphens now.)

You’ll need two special items before making tofu: a coagulant and a tofu press. Making tofu is apparently similar to making cheese: basically you curdle soy milk, then press the curds to remove the extra liquid. Easy-to-obtain coagulants include epsom salts and lemon juice. I’m not sure of the amounts off-hand because I’ve never tried either, but I can look it up for anyone who is interested because I have a book on making tofu. (I can’t look it up right now because I am settled in a very comfortable chair, with a glass of wine and a cat.) Traditionally, either nigari (sea water minerals) or gypsum (calcium sulfate) is used. Nigari and gypsum can be ordered from several online sources, including soy milk maker manufacturers. I order mine from GEM Cultures. You have to go through the archaic process of printing an order form, writing a check (or sending a money order), and mailing both in to them (although they plan to set up online ordering and Paypal acceptance at some point), however, I have always received my orders within a week and I definitely recommend them.

I have used both nigari and calcium sulfate, and although the latter has the benefit of adding nutritional calcium to the tofu, I prefer nigari, which seems to make a firmer tofu. I will therefore give instructions for using nigari in this tutorial, however, if you have any questions about other coagulants, ask away.

As for the tofu press, they are somewhat frustratingly difficult to find in the U.S., but you have options. When I first starting make tofu, I took two identical loaf pans and drilled holes in the bottom of one of them. I then nested the other into the holey one and placed the weights into it. This was actually a nice sturdy press, but I was unhappy that I was unable to drill drainage holes into the sides, and it makes about two pounds of tofu, which is more than I really need most weeks. Most soy milk maker manufacturers sell plastic tofu presses and kits like this one. These are cheap and easy to find, but I refused to go that route both because I dislike plastic and because I use such heavy weights I was afraid a plastic press would break. I doubt any plastic press is a quality product, but you may decide to go that route. I have drooled over the beautiful stainless steel press in Maki’s tofu tutorial (required reading, by the way) but until I make it to Japan, it’s out of my reach. After hours of fruitless internet searching, I ended up buying what was probably the last wooden tofu press they will ever sell at Soko Hardware in San Francisco’s Japantown when I was last out there: the owner, who had carried it back from Japan in her personal luggage, told me it’s simply not cost-efficient to stock them because there’s no demand. I paid an outrageous price for that reason. Months later, though, I came across this wooden press, which looks really nice, although it’s probably about the size of my loaf pans and may make more tofu than I personally need at a time…unless I make a rather flat block. If there is any interest, I can devote a later post to tofu presses, because I am very interested in them, but in the interest of moving this post along, let me conclude by saying if you can’t find a press and don’t want to make one, you can use a colander or strainer if you don’t mind oddly-shaped tofu. Basically you need any contraption from which liquid can drain.

As I mentioned in my post on making soy milk, the first step in making tofu is to make soy milk. You can use commercial soy milk to make tofu, although I find the idea strange. If you decide to go the commercial route, buy unsweetened soy milk and warm it up to about 170 degrees Fahrenheit before adding the coagulant. If you make the soy milk yourself, the temperature should be just about perfect after straining. The recipe I provided for 2 quarts of soy milk makes about 12-16 ounces of tofu. For this amount, dissolve three teaspoons of nigari into two cups of lukewarm water, then pour this mixture into the soy milk. I pour it in a spiral motion from a measuring cup into the large bowl or pot that contains the soy milk, then stir once, slowly, with a wooden spoon. You don’t want to disturb the soy milk much after adding the coagulant, so I try to evenly disperse it as I pour it, instead of doing a lot of stirring. Cover the bowl or pot and let it sit for about 20 minutes. It should end up looking like this, large curds amongst a yellowish liquid, or whey:

While the soy milk is coagulating, prepare your press. I set mine in the sink so the liquid can drain that way, although since the whey has other uses, most instructions I’ve seen have recommended you set it in some sort of pan that will allow you to collect the whey. Line the press with a piece of clean fabric – I use muslin, just as I used for my okara bag in the soy milk post – that is large enough to fold over the top of the press. I find it easiest to wet the fabric before lining the press with it. When the soy milk is fully coagulated, ladle it into the lined press:

As you can see in this picture, I use a wok skimmer to do the ladling:

Here is the press with all of the curds in it:

Wrap the fabric up around the curds:

Put the lid on the press, or if you are using two loaf pans, place the non-holey one on top of the curds:

Add weights to the top (or in the second loaf pan):

Atop the can, I usually place a cast iron skillet and then my molcajete, both of which weigh a ton, although here I’ve just used a heavy iron pot (into which I stuffed a tea towel to prevent the can from scratching the surface of my good pot). For a firm tofu, just load it up with as much weight as you can.

Allow the tofu to sit under the weights for half an hour or longer, the remove the weights. You should have reduced the volume of the tofu by about half:

Unmold the tofu. Here is my press with the outer sides removed:

And here it is completely unmolded:

Then I trim the edges up:

It’s usually a little lopsided because I didn’t evenly distribute the weights, but I don’t get too worked up about that.

To store, immerse in water inside an aptly-sized container and keep in the refrigerator for up to a week, changing the water daily.

Honestly, I rarely remember to change the water every day and it’s fine. You’ll know if it’s spoiled if it smells off, but I generally make it on Saturday or Sunday and use it sometime before Friday. If I haven’t used it by then, I stick it in the freezer. Freezing it changes the texture (it becomes chewier), but this is actually called for in some recipes. It’s particularly lovely served the same day, however.

I realize the tofu-making process isn’t for everyone, and that the length of this post makes it seem like a very involved process, but it actually takes little longer than an hour to make tofu from start to finish (if you have soaked the soy beans) and once you’ve done it once or twice, it doesn’t seem nearly as intensive. I do suspect, however, that I have bored most of you with this post. I seem to have bored Brachtune: