Before I get into this recipe, a few notes on cooking tofu. Tofu is, I'm pretty sure, the most misused and unfairly maligned foodstuff around. And it's unfairly maligned because it's misused. Because it's badly cooked. If your only association with tofu is the quivering, cold white squares that your hippy housemate put in her bulgur wheat salad, you're not going to like the stuff. Tofu, however, is an incredibly useful pantry staple (we're talking here about firm tofu, not silken). It's cheap. It's healthful and environmentally friendly, at least compared to livestock. It can last in the refrigerator for upwards of a month, hanging out until you need it. It can soak up the flavor of anything, and be cooked to almost any texture. It can be lightly fried to serve as a soft counterpoint to crisp vegetables like broccoli or green beans, or it can be cut into small cubes and fried to a sharp crunch. But like anything else -- ever eaten dry chicken breast? -- it must be cooked well.Let's start here: Your tofu should almost never be white. Certainly not in a dinner context. The question with tofu, rather, is how brown. Just as you cook fish until it's no longer opaque, and you cook chicken until it's no longer a pale pink, you should cook tofu until it's no longer pale and unappetizing. You should cook it on high heat, in plenty of oil. If you have it, you should use sesame oil. You should let it fry to a golden brown.From there, of course, things get more complicated. There are all sorts of ways to cook tofu. You can press it to extract liquid, bake it, fry it and then braise it (which is what I did in this recipe of yore), even barbecue it. But we're not going to get complicated here. If you haven't cooked tofu well before, you should just cook it. Cut it into cubes of about an inch (the bigger the cube the softer and moister the center). Again, use plenty of oil. Maybe with garlic and chiles in it. Again, use high heat. Again, until it's golden brown. Learn to use it. Not as a replacement for meat, but as an alternative. Unlike meat, it can hang in the fridge for quite awhile, so if you have a couple packages sitting around, you always have a protein for dinner. Alright, the recipe: WEEKEND FOOD BLOGGING: TOFU.
Before I get into this recipe, a few notes on cooking tofu. Tofu is, I'm pretty sure, the most misused and unfairly maligned foodstuff around. And it's unfairly maligned because it's misused. Because it's badly cooked. If your only association with tofu is the quivering, cold white squares that your hippy housemate put in her bulgur wheat salad, you're not going to like the stuff. Tofu, however, is an incredibly useful pantry staple (we're talking here about firm tofu, not silken). It's cheap. It's healthful and environmentally friendly, at least compared to livestock. It can last in the refrigerator for upwards of a month, hanging out until you need it. It can soak up the flavor of anything, and be cooked to almost any texture. It can be lightly fried to serve as a soft counterpoint to crisp vegetables like broccoli or green beans, or it can be cut into small cubes and fried to a sharp crunch. But like anything else -- ever eaten dry chicken breast? -- it must be cooked well.Let's start here: Your tofu should almost never be white. Certainly not in a dinner context. The question with tofu, rather, is how brown. Just as you cook fish until it's no longer opaque, and you cook chicken until it's no longer a pale pink, you should cook tofu until it's no longer pale and unappetizing. You should cook it on high heat, in plenty of oil. If you have it, you should use sesame oil. You should let it fry to a golden brown.From there, of course, things get more complicated. There are all sorts of ways to cook tofu. You can press it to extract liquid, bake it, fry it and then braise it (which is what I did in this recipe of yore), even barbecue it. But we're not going to get complicated here. If you haven't cooked tofu well before, you should just cook it. Cut it into cubes of about an inch (the bigger the cube the softer and moister the center). Again, use plenty of oil. Maybe with garlic and chiles in it. Again, use high heat. Again, until it's golden brown. Learn to use it. Not as a replacement for meat, but as an alternative. Unlike meat, it can hang in the fridge for quite awhile, so if you have a couple packages sitting around, you always have a protein for dinner. Alright, the recipe: 
