Tofu Puffs: Could there be anything more beautiful or delicious?
Probably not.
Saturday we reviewed Nature’s Soy “Soy Puffs” tofu puffs.
These things are… fantastic. I could eat them all the time.
I made them a few different ways. I’m not exactly skilled in any form of Asian cooking, but they were incredibly simple to prepare and could be made a variety of different ways.
Preparation: First I tried steaming them, but they got a little soggy. The best way to heat them up was to fry them directly on a nonstick pan (with NO oil or nonstick spray) for a minute or two on two to three sides. They will get crispy fast!
One of the experiments I did was to try to recreate the Grace’s Mandarin Crispy Tofu topping. I did this somewhat foolishly without even trying to find a recipe, I just wanted to figure it out.
I think I might need to find a copycat recipe, because my topping just came out so-so and unfortunately Grace’s is located way down south of DC and the last time we went there, they didn’t have it on the menu anymore! Egads!
I mixed several measurement iterations by making various combination choices until I got the flavor I was looking for. I would combine 1/8 of a tsp of garlic with 1/8 ginger and taste, add a little soy sauce, not like the soy sauce, empty bowl. Combine garlic, ginger, and lime – taste. Rinse, Repeat…Literally. I did this until I got close to the taste I was looking for. I tried cilantro and lime, but couldn’t get them to mix well with the garlic and ginger – the cilantro would completely overpower the flavor of the fresh ginger. Hard to imagine!
Then,I put all of the ingredients into a food processor and ‘chopped’ them so they were partially liquefied and uniform in size.
Ultimately, I ended up with garlic, green chiles, green onion, ginger, rice vinegar, and tamari (soy sauce) – in that order from most to least. Salt and pepper to taste.
We found some really cool looking curly chiles at Lotte Plaza (Asian Market).
They were not very hot – not even jalapeno hot. But they had a nice taste and hint of heat. I actually ended up using about half of three chiles – jalapeno, curly, and straight green chiles.
The topping was exceptionally strong – a little too strong, actually. But tasty. I wonder how they get it so mild yet garlicy at Grace’s Mandarin?
Mise en place, I put a bit of sweet and sour sauce onto the plate, placed the tofu puffs over that, and then put a bit of the garlic chile topping on top of the puffs.
It looked spectacular.
The contrast of colors was beautiful.
Placing them in a bowl with a bit of miso soup or vegetable broth and green onions would be fantastic. Kind of like age dofu.
Americanize them with ketchup, if you wish.
You can pretty much fry anything and it will be good – tofu is no exception.
I also served it plain (gently pan fried without additional oil) with a few dipping sauces, hoisin sauce, lite toasted sesame salad dressing, and Korean BBQ sauce leftover from the Vegetarian Korean BBQ experiment.
They were all very good and each complemented the flavor of the tofu very well.
I preferred the Korean BBQ with them, Blair preferred the hoisin sauce.
This would be a great presentation and finger food for the vegetarians or vegans at your next party!
Another option for these things is to stuff them with savory or sweet foods – diced or liquefied, such as mushrooms or bread crumbs or tomatoes or mustard or something sweet like duck sauce or cranberry relish. Ooh! Cranberry relish would have been really good!
All photos except product packaging by Blair Wright, http://blairwrightstudios.com
April has been a vegetarian her entire life and is an avid home cook. She resides in Maryland with her omnivore husband, four happy dogs, and an african grey parrot. She enjoys spending her non-cooking free time as photographer and business manager for Baltimore Maryland’s Premier Wedding and Portrait Photographers at Blair Wright Studios Photography
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