Apparently the meaning of "extra firm" varies from brand to brand.
Dishes that are basically meat recipes with something else substituted for the meat don't appeal to me as much as ones that were conceived as vegetarian (or meat-optional) from the start, in general, so perhaps part of my slowness in warming up to tofu is that when I went veg, I didn't miss the meat. (In fact, I find some TVP dishes downright unpleasant if they mimic the texture of meat too well.) The big excepton is my ought-to-be-famous vegetarian chili, which is modelled on my mother's chili con carne as a starting point before all the Glennish touches are added. In that, cracked wheat takes on the job that the ground beef usually does, without actually pretending to be meat.
I'm not good at stir fry (argh! it looks easy!) but that's on my list of skills to improve already; I can see using tofu as a minor ingredient in a vegetable stir fry once I get decent at that.
I don't really use recipes so it was sort of a halfassed comment for me to say substitue for meat in meat dishes. Basically my cooking style is to familiarize myselof with the flavor of all the ingredients separately and then combine them in ways that are inspired by how I interpret the flavor combinations from different styles of cooking that I've tried before. Which is to say that my "subsistute for meat" instruction was to say that the subtle nutty flavor queue of tofu when combined with a good tamari or shoyu fills in the part of the flavor boquette that would normally be occupied by chicken, beef, lamb, etc... I'm only sorta vegetarian (I prefer the term meat reductionist), I guess the proper term is ova-lacto-pisco-vegetarian; hence the fish sauce suggestion in my earlier post. At any rate, katbot can't stand things with meaty flavors and textures and she quite enjoys my tofu dishes so they can't be too "meaty" :)
Another good one that I forgot to mention earlier is teriyaki broiled tofu. I generally use a store bought teriyaki sauce ("soy vey veriyaki" or something equally kitschy sounding) and just layer the pressed sliced tofu into a casserole dish so it make a single layer with little gaps, then I pour enough sauce over it to fill all the gaps and leave a very thin layer of tofu over the top. I then broil this until the top of the tofu is brown and slightly singed where the sugar from the sauce has carmelized at the edges of the dish. I then pile mixture of broccoli and roughly chopped onions on top that have been marinated in a mixture of honey, rice vinegar, apple juice, crushed red pepper, and tamari. I then reduce the oven temp to about 400 degrees and put the layer tofu and veggie casserole dish on the middle rack with a lid (usually an inverted cookie sheet) and ook for an additional 5-10 minutes depending on how well cooked I feel like having my veggies. While it's baking I often reduce the marinade in a sauce pot with a bit of cornstarch to thicken for use as a sauce over the finish product. NOTE: while this is cooked in layers you will find it impossible to serve in layers, I usuualy just use a slotted spoon to dole out heaping mounds of the veggie/tofu goodness and then spoon a bit of the sauce over the top. Goes super good with a nice Ale :)
(no subject)
Dishes that are basically meat recipes with something else substituted for the meat don't appeal to me as much as ones that were conceived as vegetarian (or meat-optional) from the start, in general, so perhaps part of my slowness in warming up to tofu is that when I went veg, I didn't miss the meat. (In fact, I find some TVP dishes downright unpleasant if they mimic the texture of meat too well.) The big excepton is my ought-to-be-famous vegetarian chili, which is modelled on my mother's chili con carne as a starting point before all the Glennish touches are added. In that, cracked wheat takes on the job that the ground beef usually does, without actually pretending to be meat.
I'm not good at stir fry (argh! it looks easy!) but that's on my list of skills to improve already; I can see using tofu as a minor ingredient in a vegetable stir fry once I get decent at that.
Thanks for the tips.
(no subject)
Another good one that I forgot to mention earlier is teriyaki broiled tofu. I generally use a store bought teriyaki sauce ("soy vey veriyaki" or something equally kitschy sounding) and just layer the pressed sliced tofu into a casserole dish so it make a single layer with little gaps, then I pour enough sauce over it to fill all the gaps and leave a very thin layer of tofu over the top. I then broil this until the top of the tofu is brown and slightly singed where the sugar from the sauce has carmelized at the edges of the dish. I then pile mixture of broccoli and roughly chopped onions on top that have been marinated in a mixture of honey, rice vinegar, apple juice, crushed red pepper, and tamari. I then reduce the oven temp to about 400 degrees and put the layer tofu and veggie casserole dish on the middle rack with a lid (usually an inverted cookie sheet) and ook for an additional 5-10 minutes depending on how well cooked I feel like having my veggies. While it's baking I often reduce the marinade in a sauce pot with a bit of cornstarch to thicken for use as a sauce over the finish product. NOTE: while this is cooked in layers you will find it impossible to serve in layers, I usuualy just use a slotted spoon to dole out heaping mounds of the veggie/tofu goodness and then spoon a bit of the sauce over the top. Goes super good with a nice Ale :)