Crisp marinated and baked tofu

January 7, 2016 at 8:57 pm (Baked tofu, B_minus (2.5 stars), East and SE Asia, Tofu, Website / blog)

This recipe has you press tofu, marinate it overnight in the fridge, drain it, dredge it in cornstarch, and bake it on an unoiled cookie sheet until the outside is crisp on the inside, but still soft on the inside.  The recipe is originally from Joe Yonan, but I found it on David Lebovitz’s blog. He raves about it, and it’s a different technique than I’ve used before. Normally I either pan-fry tofu, bake it submerged in a marinade, or bread it then bake it in thin slices. This recipe is something a little bit different.

Lebovitz’s recipe is for 1 pound of tofu, but I figured if I was going to so much trouble I would stick with the original 2 pounds.

I wasn’t convinced by the pressing step. Very little water actually seemed to come out. I’d be curious to try this again with half pressed tofu and half unpressed, and see if there is any difference in texture or taste.

I found the step of sprinkling corn starch over the tofu pieces to be quite tricky. Only a single side of the tofu cubes would get coated, and when I tried to turn them the corn starch would come off the already-coated side.

The baking step has you bake the cubes at a relatively low temperature (350 F) for a relatively long time (45 minutes). I felt like this wasn’t optimal for browning the tofu. The tofu came out a tad tough for my tastes, and not as crispy as I would have liked. I think a higher temperature and shorter baking time would improve the texture.

I did like the basic flavor the marinade imparted, but I found the recipe not worth the trouble. I wonder if I could just bake it in the marinade? Maybe I’ll try that next time.