tofu, or as my friend calls it, "edible plastic"
Let’s face it, fat tastes good. This is a problem, because if you take the fat out of your food, it just doesn’t taste the same. Take butter, for example. Is there any real substitute? I think not.
I’m a fan of tofu, but I forget most of the time that it exists. It’s usually tucked away somewhere in a corner of the grocery fridge so I walk right by it. But it pays to enjoy tofu, not just for economic reasons (how can you beat $1.49 for about half a kilo?). Tofu is also a decent meat substitute if you want to pad your dish with protein that’s low in calories, high in calcium, low in fat and has zero cholesterol.
“Tofu tastes like plastic,” my friend opines. But I cooked him up a tofu stir fry one night with red thai curry paste and he actually liked it. “See? You just need to experiment.”
I can't seem to cook without onions. Sorry, Helma!
spice up your life
Well, I tried an experiment with some tikka masala spices I’d bought, but this experiment fell a little flat. The spices were good, but I ran out of tomatoes, I had to sub the lemon juice for some leftover calamansi powder from my cookie-making spree, I had no cilantro, I’m out of cream, and my natural yoghurt is from skim milk, not full fat. It’s not really tikka masala without tomatoes, but the one thing I feel makes a huge difference is cilantro. If you’re a cilantro person (there are only two kinds of people in this world, people who love cilantro and people who hate it), you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Can’t blame the tofu this time. Next time: cilantro, tomatoes, ultra-natural yoghurt.
Edible plastic – hahaha. I had tofu the first time in Kuala Lumpur and they made it look like… fish.
I won’t believe you unless you took a picture
Aww, no I didn’t. I was too hungry to take photos
Love tofu, hate cilantro.
I love tofu and never understood people who instinctively don’t. Of course, it has to be cooked, but it is tasty and there are so many different kinds of textures!
I like to dump tofu in my ramen, or stir fry it with onion and zucchini.