This Can’t be Tofu!

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Recipes:

• Warm Red Cabbage Salad with Peppered Tofu Crisps
  
• Peppered Tofu Crisps
• Curried “Chicken” Salad
• Stir-Fried Noodles with Fresh and Baked Tofu

This anecdote appeared in the Metropolitan Diary in The New York Times while I was writing my cookbook, This Can’t Be Tofu!

Jane Block, shopping in her local health-food store, placed a container of fresh tofu in her basket. A well-dressed man approached her and in a clipped British accent asked exactly what she did with the tofu. She replied that normally she put it in the refrigerator, looked at it for several weeks, then threw it away. The man replied: “That’s exactly what my wife does with it. I was hoping you had a better recipe.”

Well, for all of you whose relationship to tofu is as earnest but as unfulfilled as Jane’s, here are some better recipes.

Disappearing Tofu and Dessert

While the recipes on Pages 48 to 50 treat tofu as a food to be enjoyed for its own intrinsic qualities, tofu also can disappear into dishes so completely that you don’t even know it’s there. For example, stir pureed silken tofu into prepared mayonnaise or into a ricotta filling intended for manicotti, ravioli or enchiladas, and you truly won’t know the difference. I have a suspicious palate when it comes to substitutes, so you can trust me on this.

With desserts, you might find soy milk a bit easier to use than tofu. Soy milk can be used wherever milk is called for in a recipe except where color is important. For example, it makes no difference in a butterscotch tapioca or chocolate pudding, but it might be off-putting in an old-fashioned vanilla custard, simply because its hue can be slightly brownish. Otherwise, soy milk can easily be used as a substitute in dishes such as cakes and French toast.

In desserts and baked goods, use 2 ounces pureed silken tofu to replace each egg called for in pancake, muffin, quick bread and cake recipes. Or add tofu along with the eggs, or just the egg whites, to your recipe. Tofu provides moisture and structure to baked goods yet doesn’t interfere with the flavor. It can even be included in a chocolate cake or pumpkin pie with no one the wiser, and tofu cheesecakes have become rather popular these days. When using pureed tofu in baked goods, make sure it’s completely smooth before adding it to a batter. Any little globs of tofu will harden as they bake and leave their visible traces, attractive neither to the tongue nor to the eye.

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