I took a next step in my tofu journey and per request, I am hereby writing it down.
Gosh, this stuff is versatile. Yes, I completely agree it tastes like wet sponge when you don’t know what to do with tofu, but once you learn… You can use it to make just about anything (like pie!).
We’ve been using crumbled tofu in our wok dishes for a while now and I always throw some soy and spices in there. It’s okay and definitely only after freezing and defrosting the tofu, so you can get rid of a lot of moist and therefor avoid the spongyness. I felt I could still do better though, because it wasn’t crispy enough.
That’s when I decided to try and use the oven to my adventage. I can’t give any clear directions or one single set of ingredients, because I just throw together what I have, what I like, what I feel like at the time and the amounts depend on the amount of tofu you have. Here’s the gist:
First, freeze and defrost your tofu. You have to do this to easily be able to squeeze out a lot of the moisture. So do this next, squeeze out the extra moisture from your tofu. Then cut it up into small pieces. The smaller, the crispier. Vary a little if you want to try and see what works best for you.
Make your favorite marinade. I usually go with ingredients like:
- Soy sauce
- Balsamic vinegar
- Oil (consider one with a certain taste if you’d like)
- Lemon juice
- Liquid smoke (just a few drops!)
- Spices like smoked paprika, garlic, turmeric, etc.
- Barbecue sauce
- Some people like to add a hot sauce.
Mix your tofu pieces with the marinade. Don’t be afraid to get your hands in there! Then, add cornstarch to cover your marinated tofu pieces.
Preheat the oven to ~180C, spread out your tofu pieces on a baking tray covered with something like parchment paper, and put them in the oven for about 30 minutes. This time, however, depends a lot on how big your tofu pieces are and how crispy you want them (and ofcourse, every oven is different). Mix them up inbetween. Do this a couple of times to also be able to check how far along you are.
This is something to practice with I guess, but I hope my tips gives you a good start.
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