Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

Despite all my homages to meat on this blog, I really really really like tofu. Being Korean, I’m not scared of tofu. I love it. I love hot, I love it cold, I love it fried, boiled, squished into dumplings, deep-fried and now, I like it frozen.

Since my boyfriend likes to eat vegetarian, I’ve been making more tofu for him and for myself. I’m a bit of a treehugger so adding more soy to my diet is ok by me. The thing is, I almost wrote ’substituting tofu for meat’ in that sentence, but I am a firm believer that substituting tofu for meat is a BAD IDEA. The reason I think it’s a bad idea is that frankly, tofu will never be meat. I don’t pretend that tofu is meat. Tofu is tofu and it has merits of its own. It will never be steak, but I don’t want it to be steak and that doesn’t bother me like it does other carnivores. Maybe it’s because I grew up with an awesome arsenal of Korean tofu dishes, a lot of which also have meat. (Mabo-dofu anyone?) Or that I don’t try to fool myself that it’s akin to actual meat. (Though there are some highly processed soy products that are pretty yummy, fake chicken patties especially. Heck, what’s a Chicken McNugget?)

Being single, I usually cannot use an entire package of tofu very quickly. Even if I make an entree with leftovers, an entire package of fresh tofu (well, as fresh as the organic tofu from the western market is). I end up with half a block of the stuff that I never get around to eating. Heck, even when cooking for two, I try to make enough for us to eat and that still leaves a decent block left over.

Boyfriend bought a tofu cookbook at the DC Farmer’s Market recently. (It’s the wholesale market district, not Eastern Market yuppieville, which is fine, but let’s get real about who shops where.) The cookbook is a Japanese-cuisine cookbook, ironically sold by Koreans, but I digress. We flipped through it to get some recipe ideas and learn to cook better, but the stunning revelation in it is a lesson in freezing tofu and what to do with a frozen chunk. Boyfriend’s vegetarian/vegan friends say freezing tofu makes it firmer and meatier in texture. Having never done this before, I tried it out with the last block. Basically, I wrapped it tightly in plastic wrap, pushing out as much air as possible and tossed it into the freezer.

That was 3 weeks ago.

I eyed the beige colored block of frozen tofu for many days, uncertain of what to do with it. I read somewhere in the recipe book that frozen tofu is excellent for simmering. Perfect. I had an idea! I bought some shiro miso (lit ‘white miso’) at the supermarket and some scallions. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any dashi powder (sardine/fish stock powder), but I’ll get some next time. It turned out ok without it.

I had some leftover squash I diced into small cubes, and started boiling in a 1qt saucepot. Then I thawed out the frozen tofu in warm water, pulling off the plastic wrap. I tossed the entire block into the boiling water and waited about 10 minutes. I should have waited longer since the block was still frozen in the very center. But either way, I fished it out of the water, and drained it. I put it on the cutting board and cut it into cubes and tossed back into the pot. I brough the water back up to a boil, added some chopped garlic and a big spoonful of miso. I let the miso dissolve into the water and then took it off the heat. I sprinkled some minced scallions and served. Quite tasty and pretty hearty since the cubes were kind of big. Boyfriend said he really liked it and would like to try deep frying frozen tofu to see if will come out like some other tofu dishes he’s had.

Usually I make miso soup with silken tofu, but this was a really nice hearty miso soup. I needed some super thin sliced white onion, seaweed (kombe seaweed), dashi, maybe a little few tiny anchovies/sardines or dried fish to make it really yummy. Maybe even a little shitake mushroom too.