Baked Tofu

Hi guys!

Meat free Monday is here and I wanted to try a recipe from my brand new book "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian". The book was written by Mark Bittman, who is a columnist for New York Times, food journalist and cookbook author. I have come across his book on Gwyneth Paltrow's blog Goop in a post about meat free monday and vegetarian cooking and as I was searching for a decent vegetarian and vegan cookbook, I though I would give this a try. The book is huge. It has close to 1000 pages, no pictures unfortunately, but it gives you all the information on all basics with regards to vegan and vegetarian cooking as well as basic techniques and product knowledge at the beginning of every chapter. 

I had some leftover tofu that needed to be used for something. Tofu is a little hard to handle for the average omnivore. It hardly has a taste to it and a funny texture when you're not used to it. I've always had trouble finding recipes that would end up with well-tasting tofu. "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" offers a variety of preparation techniques for tofu - poached, baked, broiled, fried or grilled - as well as a number of variations for each. As I have never tried baked tofu, I though I would give that a try. I went with a variation of the classic baked tofu: soy-baked tofu.

Here's the recipe:
1 to 2 pounds firm tofu
salt

1) Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Dry the tofu with paper towels - you don't have to be too compulsive about this; just blot off excess water - and sprinkle it with salt. Put in a nonstick skillet or baking pan.

2) Bake for about 1 hour, undisturbed. The tofu is done when the crust is lightly browned and firm. Remove and use immediately or cool, wrap, and refrigerate for up to 3 days. 

Soy-Baked Tofu: about 10 seconds more work and - for many uses - a significant improvement. After blotting off water, brush liberally with good soy sauce. You may still want to sprinkle with salt, but very lightly. Bake as directed. 
© Copyright: Mark Bittman, "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian", p. 641

Serves: 4
Active preparation time: 5 minutes
Total preparation time: 65 minutes


Here's how it looks:

I served mine with oven-roasted cauliflower and some quinoa. The tofu gets a beautiful crust and a lot of flavour from the soy sauce. I used 1/2 pound and cut the baking time down to about 35 minutes. 

Have fun trying!