If you’re gonna bread your tofu you can’t parboil. The usual wisdom is to use corn starch but I get good results with normal dredge (about half flour, half bread crumbs, heavily spiced) on one cm cubes fried in a pan, flipped once by hand.

Tofu like this is crispy and delicious fresh and fair to middlin as leftovers.

[–] roux@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can try this! With the bread crumbs I bet it would work great with sauces and such. Dang now I wanna do sweet and sour tofu lol.

[–] xXthrowawayXx@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

my process is to take and drain some regular grocery store tofu and slice it into two. then i slice each half of the block into cubes but leave em blocked up and wrap em each in a paper towel like a christmas present to dry out. i start the oil going in the pan, you don't need as much as you think, and mix up dredge in a bowl, you need more than you think, while everythings drying/getting hot. once the paper towel is soaked through i'll take it off a block and toss em in the dredge. i like to let em sit for a little bit and also make sure none of em are stuck together.

i add em to the pan one by one and once thyere all in, put the other block in the dredge and toss and make sure theyre not stuck together. once that's done its time to flip all the tofu in the pan over in the rough order they were added and if you got a lopsided stove like mine, spin the pan around.

a little later, take out the tofu and set em in a strainer over a bowl to drip dry and do the next block.

e: rough amounts for oil and dredge: enough that youre gonna start a "used cooking oil" jug when youre done, maybe a quarter to a half cup, maybe more. enough dredge that youre gonna start a "dredge for frying things" tupperware that lives over the stove, about two or three cups, maybe more. remember to heavily spice the dredge! it if tastes like youre licking it*lian bread then you did it right.

[–] roux@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll have to look into a used oil and a dredge Tupperware solution. I never really thought I'd be a tofu person in the first place but it's just so cheap.

[–] xXthrowawayXx@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

I keep a jug for it under the sink and figure out what to do with it when it gets full. You’re not supposed to dump it outside or down the drain because it fucks shit up. I live in the middle of nowhere and have an actual factual old timey oil lamp that can burn it when the power goes out or when we wanna look spooky. Someone with livestock will usually take it as a feed additive. Usually there’s someone making biodiesel around that’ll take it and a lot of mechanics shops have waste oil heaters that can burn it. If worse comes to worse, the dump usually has a collection day where you can bring it by for free and from there someone making biodiesel or animal feed commercially uses it.

Keeping a bunch of stuff on the back of the stove for cooking rules, right now I got salt, pepper, garlic, dried chilies and a little container of dredge. When it’s getting towards stale, combine with some egg and milk to make little fry critters.