broken. It’s leading to antibiotic- resistant superbugs, runaway climate change, and widespread animal cruelty. But American plant-based cuisine is broken, too. The low appeal of subtraction, substitution, and tradition is driving apart the very coalition necessary to stop these problems
- Location 127
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Firm, medium-firm, extra-firm, and super-firm tofu are all made the same way, so we classify them as just one variety. In Chinese, this variety is called laodoufu or beidoufu.
- Location 169
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To flavor firm tofu, most Asian preparations rely on moist-heat cooking methods, such as: 1. Frying then stewing it in liquid. This creates hollow pockets inside the tofu that readily soak up juices. 2. Steaming it with salty sauces. This causes the tofu to constrict, forcing out beany water and letting in intense, concentrated flavor. 3. Poaching it in salty water, then adding it to a soup or stir fry. Soup and stir fry sauces aren’t salty enough to adequately flavor raw firm tofu, so it’s often par-blanched first. 4. One occasional exception is serving tofu fried and unseasoned, with an intensely flavored dipping sauce. Even this tofu, however, is often either par-blanched in salty water before frying, to improve its flavor and create a denser, springier texture, or sliced very thin, so that it has a large surface area to pick up sauce.
- Location 188
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Asian cooking styles elevate the texture of firm tofu. To prevent it from breaking apart during cooking, firm tofu is usually par-fried in oil or par-blanched in salty water, which causes it to firm up slightly but stay juicy. The tofu is finished in a soft cushion of liquid, such as in a soup, a stew, or the latter half of a stir fry.
- Location 210
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