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Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

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Soy-Glazed Tofu

Posted November 03, 2008
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Not your grandmother's tofu, right?

Doesn't it look wonderful? What? Look close. You still can't see it?

Peek-a-boo!

Tofu is about as difficult to cut as ricotta aspic, making Ben's use of the Biggest Knife in the World mystifyingly hard to justify. Still. His advice? "Cut it in half and then in half again and then cut the quarters into thirds." For those of you in third grade studying fractions. Otherwise simply cut it in 12 pieces.

Despite Ben's tofu-zombie expression, the kids were gobbling it before dinner, and I had only staged it the tiniest bit.

Birdy stops talking to enjoy a warm slice of tofu. No, I'm kidding. Birdy would never stop talking, not for any reason, ever.

Doesn't "soy-glazed" sound so lovely? It was either that or "pan-roasted tofu" or "butter-browned tofu"-the idea being, of course, to make it sound like it's halibut at a fancy restaurant, not like it's a one-pound block of quivering beany blandness. Ah, tofu. We eat a lot of it. It's inexpensive, it's incredibly good for you, our kids love it, and you can treat it like a blank canvas. Plus, it fills us with nostalgia for the early days of our great romance. Yes, welcome to another episode of Dalai Mama Dishes up memories of falling in love with her husband in a vegetarian co-op...

Speaking of which, if you've ever lived in a vegetarian co-op, then you know how easy it is to make tofu taste exactly like, er, tofu. Michael and I have eaten great panfuls of tofu parmesan, for example, that tasted like sauce and cheese that had been dumped on slices of a wet sponge, and I don't recommend it (we used to call it, not unaffectionately, toe-food). The trick is to use tofu's mild sponginess to your own advantage, preferably by impelling it to soak up a lot of salt and butter. Hence the following, which is our current go-to recipe, and we eat it at least once a week. Allowed to brown in a pan with soy sauce and lemon juice, the tofu gets crispy-edged and tangily addictive. Just be sure to buy extra-firm tofu, since any other style will fall all to pieces in the pan-especially "silken tofu" which has the texture of jellied library paste. In my supermarket, tofu is in the produce aisle, I'm not sure why. But then again, this is the same supermarket that packages Halvah-which is a kind of gritty candy made from ground sesame seeds-and labels it "cheese alternative," so what do they know? (Maybe I'll start thinking of maple fudge as a "cheese alternative" when I'm preparing lunch for myself.)

Back to tofu: If you've got toddlers, then thank your lucky stars you're not a withered old Mama like me with only ginormous galumphers clomping through the house on their way to college. Wait, no. I was going to make a relevant point. Oh right: toddlers might like to eat cubes of raw tofu, which they mistakenly take to be delicious, probably because it feels like getting away with something, such as eating salt-free Play-Doh.

Soy-Glazed Tofu
active time: 5 minutes; total time: 15 minutes
yield: 4 smallish servings
Leftovers make terrific lunchbox fare. These days, now that Ben eats like a vacuum cleaner, I double the recipe to guarantee there will be some extra; I simply wipe the pan out with a paper towel between batches.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
14 ounces extra-firm tofu
Juice of half a large lemon (around 2 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons soy sauce

Begin by wrangling the tofu into slices. Yes, it's bobbing around in its plastic box like a malevolently bland sea creature, but you're brave! Slice around three sides of the box's plastic cover with a knife, then hold the plastic over the tofu over the sink while the liquid drains off (picture the soy version of draining a can of tuna). Now peel back the plastic, take the tofu from the box, and cut it into 12 skinny slices (see Ben, at right). If you have time, and I only occasionally do, you can wrap the tofu in a clean dish towel and weigh it down with something (a cutting board, say), to press more moisture out of it for a half an hour or so. This will make it fry a bit quicker and crisper, but honestly this recipe works just find with the tofu as is.

In a very large non-stick skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. When it is foamy and very hot, lay in the tofu pieces to form a crowded single layer; if the first piece of tofu sizzles only noncommittally or not at all, give the butter another minute to heat up. Now brown the tofu undisturbed for around 5 minutes; when the underside is a deep golden, flip all the pieces and allow the other side to brown for another 3-5 minutes.

Now pour in the lemon juice and soy sauce, and shake the pan to coat the bottom of every piece with the mixture, then flip all the pieces and cook, shaking the pan, until the liquid is all cooked off and the underside of the tofu looks glazed and brown. Serve hot or at room temperature with brown rice and a salad. Leftovers are great cold as is, or sliced into skinny strips and sprinkled over a big green salad.

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About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir, Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide.

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