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@rayzor6 @HybridCRoW

Two people who have good things to say about tofu. Nice.

Aside from not seeing tofu served that often, I hardly see it on menus either. Occasionally you spot a dish or two, but that's it. Maybe it's just that it's more known/widely used in Asian cultures?

Fun fact: Soy is one of the most genetically modified crops in the world.

I had stinky tofu in Taiwan. No thanks.

Porksta wrote:
I haven't had it, but that seems different than having something like hot and sour soup with bits of tofu in it or stir fried tofu. I would think stinky tofu is an acquired taste.

Martha Stewart has a pretty delicious Tofu dessert recipe. It's basically a lemon creme (with the tofu being the bulk of the creme) with berries on/in it

I've had a Korean breakfast.... kimchi, rice, spam, fried egg.... DELICIOSO!!!

I don’t have a lot of experience with tofu outside of miso soup. It’s delicious in miso soup.

There’s a pop culture con thing here next weekend. There’s a few wrestlers that are going to be there. Jerry Lawler was supposed to be there, but he pulled out because he had a stroke a few months ago. They replaced him with Scott Steiner. I hope he’s cool about being asked to autograph 141 2/3 per cents chance of winning on the picture I buy.

There’s some other anime people that are supposed to be there, and a few of the actors that have been in the Ninja Turtles costumes for movies or whatever. I’m sure it’s gonna be great.

benstylus wrote:
I think someone mentioned this one to me. Is it a recipe that gets blended?

nonamesleft wrote:

So, I'm a vegetarian, so I've got quite a bit of experience with tofu -- both making some things myself and, more commonly, seeing it on a menu at a restaurant with limited veggie options. And I think I can answer your question about it getting a bad rep like this: Because people don't know how to prepare it.

Like you said, tofu doesn't taste bad. In fact, to me, it pretty much tastes like nothing. It's just a blank taste to me. You have to DO something with it. Also, unless you do some prep work, tofu kinda has a horrible texture to me and many people. So, by default, it is a non-colorful, non-tasty, bad-texture food. That's not good.

So, GOOD tofu has this:

It is prepped right so that the texture is more firm -- like biting into chicken kinda. (You do this by buying extra firm and then freezing it before you use it.)
It is soaked in some sort of SOMETHING for flavor.
It is often breaded or coated with something.

My two favorite uses for tofu: hot/spicy "chicken" wings (where I do them in strips with Soy Sauce and Frank's RedHot) or Peppered tofu (breaded and pepper-coated cubes on rice).

All that being said, I'm NOT really a fan of tofu in soups like many others. Because, again, it usually ends up being just cubes of tastelessness.

The one time I attempted to make tofu, I was too excited to give it a try and ended up rushing the prep. My pal told me how to do it but I just got it, placed it in sauce, let it soak in the sauce in the fridge for a while, and then tried to cook it. It came out mushy, as I assume most folks who dislike tofu have experienced.

I definitely want to give it another try because I definitely need to eat healthier, and by all accounts tofu is great when prepared correctly as John said.

Yup. That's the key to the prep. Buy it and put it straight into the freezer (water and all in the normal container it comes in). It'll freeze into a solid brick. When you want to use it, put it in the fridge a couple days beforehand to thaw. Once thawed, open and drain the water -- and then squeeze all the extra water out (preferrably with a Tofu press, but you can just put like a plate on it and some heavy books or something).

THEN you cut it up into whatever (cubes, strips) and use it. MUCH, much better texture.

John wrote:
Freezing it changes the texture even upon it being fully thawed?

How do you make those two dishes you mentioned?

nonamesleft wrote:

Yes, absolutely.


Here's the Black Pepper Tofu recipe. Just note that this is a UK site though and it assumes a weird (for the USA) sized Tofu! It says "800g firm tofu" and the typical USA store-bought is HALF that. So you'll either need to HALF this recipe or do two normal USA tofu containers. The first time I made it, I didn't notice that and it was WAY too much pepper! Also, I don't always stick to the recipe. I make it with whatever I have. So, I never have the 3 different soy sauces it mentions, for example. I just use a normal soy sauce (like Kikoman or whatever) that you'd buy in the store. And I used some dry shake-on onions and chili pepper flakes instead of all the fresh stuff. So, again, really pretty modified and it was still very good. My wife loves this one.

And here's the Crispy Baked Buffalo Tofu Wings one. These I do just like it says -- minus the parsley because that isn't my thing.

Huh. Kikkoman sells a Black Pepper Noodle Kit that's probably close to that. (You add the protein and veggies to it, the ingredients imply that it's actually vegan. It says you have to use 4oz of beef, but I use a lot more since it has way too much sauce for a single meal. It should work with prepared tofu...)

https://kikkomanusa.com/homecooks/products/black-p...

John wrote:
Thanks! Looking forward to trying these out some time.

I lived in Taiwan for many years, there are different types of stinky tofu, some of them even tolerable. That said, it'd never be something I chose first to eat, we haven't been back for 4 years, going back this summer and my wife has been terrorizing my son with how they're gonna try it. (I'm terrorized, he doesn't understand yet so he's excited to try it haha)

I lived next to a night market and you could smell the stall more than a block away before you could even see it. Luckily not at my place but I had to walk by it every night, kudos to whomever was starving enough to first eat something that smells like an open sewer lol

ChrisKW1 wrote:
Never had stinky tofu. Smell aside, how's the taste?

Today there was this endless stream of cars during the afternoon. Just cars, and cars, and more cars, then more cars. And then more cars. Then some more. They just wouldn't stop.

I thought to myself "This non stop flow of traffic tastes like sad"

nonamesleft wrote:


There are two main common types in Taiwan (at least in Taipei where I lived): fried or stewed. The fried is far milder in flavor, almost a cheese like flavor, if you can get past the smell. If you load it up with the pickled cabbage etc they sell it with, it's passable, to me at least. The stewed stuff is 100x worse smelling, and way stronger in flavor, to me it tasted like cheese that had gone way bad, almost a rotten meat after taste. 100/10 would never try it that way again.

The only time I had tofu where the texture wasn't off putting was in a tofurkey where they actually layered the tofu in very small strands to simulate the texture of meat. That said it was salty as hell and I'd much rather just had turkey which was probably healthier considering the additives. Nothing against tofu, but I'm very much a textural eater, and the 6 or so times I had tofu only the once was it edible for me. With 3d printing of food perhaps that will one day change.

I went to the Taylor Swift concert in Pittsburgh this past weekend and can't stop thinking about how good it was. It was a huge crowd at over 73,000 (set the record for the stadium) and the show rocked harder than any actual rock band I have ever seen. I was sitting in an upper section and could feel the stadium shaking for nearly the whole show. Taylor played 44 songs over a 3 hour period without any kind of an intermission which was impressive in itself. The lines for food, drinks, etc were also very manageable once the show started. Even if you aren't into her music, I would highly recommend seeing her live if you ever get the chance. What an entertainer!

Dang, 44 songs over 3 hours? That's insane!

sa330206 wrote:

any surprise/special guests??

shadyfozzie wrote:

She brought out Aaron Dessner to play "August" on the Piano. Her other "surprise" song was The Story of Us. I really want to see her again but she just announced international dates through August 2024 so it will be a long time.

ChrisKW1 wrote:
100/10? . It's that pungent, huh? Do people enjoy it, or is it the kind of food that's simply easy to make and plentiful?

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