Lucas Sin Teaches You How to Pan-Fry Tofu 2 Ways | In The Kitchen With

i got here to the us got here to america and people started telling me and teaching me how to sear tofu turns out in the u.s or much of the western cooking world tofu is primarily a meat substitute which is to say that it needs to be cooked the way we cook steak those sort of ideas i believe are sort of archaic you don't need to treat tofu as steak you don't need to treat tofu like the way you treat meat so a lot of the rules that apply to searing and pan searing meat don't apply to tofu we're going to test that with two different types of tofu the first is going to be firm tofu which is a little bit easier to handle but we're going to go as far as we can in terms of removing as much moisture from there as possible and the second the silken tofu we're just going to cook the silken tofu as is we're going to embrace the fact that it's has very high moisture content and that's why it's so delicious [Music] firm tofu still has little sort of soy curdles inside of it so when you take it out of the package it'll be lumpy so it's a coagulated tofu that's pressed together into a specific shape that's different from silken tofu that's why when you get it it's sitting in this water because the water is there to help preserve it and that's what firm tofu looks like you can see the curds it's like got it doesn't have a super high moisture content because most of this inside is like protein and other stuff that's holding it together now here's the kicker cut to the chase we're going to freeze this firm tofu is particularly good at freezing because when you're freezing tofu what you're hoping to do is you're actually purging the water out of that tofu what happens in short is the water molecules that are inside of this cell structure expand as they freeze become ice shards those ice shards are sharp they break up the cell walls they open the entire structure of the tofu up so that the inside eventually becomes a sponge it's a miraculous thing that most likely started in northeastern china where people would store their tofu outside in the winter and they would bring it back in and then they would defrost and then it would become a text really a totally different thing it becomes a sponge it can soak up all of the lovely flavors that you're cooking that tofu with on top of that from a pan searing perspective we've used the freezing method to take out as much liquid and as much moisture as possible so you can get that crisp exterior that you're looking for the best way to feed your tofu is in some sort of sealed environment either on a metal tray like this with plastic wrap over the top or a container with a lid you want to drain that water out first and just throw it inside of the freezer that's the best way to do it the second best way and the lazy man's way to do it is to just throw this entire package sealed into the freezer and then take it out a little bit later from my tests it's much better to freeze the entire block of tofu than to cut it up first and then freeze it afterwards interestingly in order to get this as dry as possible you want as much moisture as possible in the tofu as you're freezing it because you're going to remove it later so this is the frozen tofu that's what it looks like after letting it sit on the tray this is your final this is your product this is what that frozen pre-frozen tofu looks like the same brand of tofu too right yeah same block of tofu side by side firm tofu you can see that this one is significantly smaller because it's already naturally purged a lot of that liquid but we're going to squish the rest of it out i'm going to cut it in half so you can see what the inside actually looks like all of those holes totally because ice shards just loosen it up make sense now because it's in the freezer it'll last forever if you know that sometime in your future you're going to do this just throw blocks of tofu in the freezer and keep it there just take it out before you want to cook it once you've taken out of the freezer you want to press it you want to expel that extra liquid you can also do between your hands it's sponge don't worry about pressing it because it's going to come back look it's slowly going to absorb air and it's going to be back you hear the water screaming as you're evacuating it from its home oh that's so violent and this is going to create this i guess i hate to say it but like sort of meat like texture right it almost mimics the lattice almost mimics the way meat proteins are like connected to each other it's got like a direction and all you think that's what's like meat like about this approach in this method each block of tofu standard issue in the u.s comes in 16 ounces is a pound so we're going to cut that into slices okay that's the frozen tofu 14 slices [Music] now the biggest difference in between silk and tofu and firm tofu silk and tofu and medium tofu and even sulking tofu and soft tofu is that silken tofu is set inside of the container that's why it's so hard to get out that's why you'll see the um edge of the mold like this is the mold the mold is the container that they sell it to you in the easiest way to take this out is to flip it over and if it doesn't come out like this naturally because of suction the chinese standard protocol is to cut the corner off to give you a little bit of air usually come on dude so the traditional chinese home cooking way of getting it out if you don't successfully get to plot out like this is to cut a corner which should should let some air in so that it will come out naturally oh my goodness one way to get tofu silken tofu out of the container is to carve the shape you want directly into the container and then invert it so in this case we're aiming for around 14 slices i think so just go directly in with a paring knife this should create enough gaps and enough air bubbles so that when you invert it it comes out sort of naturally come on all four all four this is why we don't work with american tofu brands that's half of it right that's most of it oh that's not bad bloopers oh thank god that's most of it this is not the best thing ever but it's not the worst here's a silken tofu it is very very delicate so we are going to be quite careful with it what we're going to do is we're going to help it dehydrate a little bit because when we're pan searing things moisture is indeed the enemy but that is not to say that all of the moisture and the entire slice of tofu is the enemy just the stuff from the surface so the technique here is a result of osmosis we're going to put a little bit of a cure on this tofu to help some of that moisture come out just a little bit of salt about half a teaspoon per pound of tofu but here's the thing even with this you're not going to get super dry tofu skin on the outside this is more of a step also to just help marinate your tofu a little bit and give it a little bit of flavor and then let it sit in the fridge or out for about at least 15 minutes until some of the liquid starts to purge [Music] the cook of this pancrea tofu dish is in two stages first we're gonna sear off our tofu get a nice crust on there and then we're gonna build a pan sauce that will return the tofu too so first let's just cook off this firm tofu just to see what the texture is like non-stick pan will always help but honestly this frozen firm tofu is pretty generous we're waiting for the oil to shimmer in chinese we sometimes say we wait for the oil to dance especially for firm tofu you're trying to get a crust on there as quickly as possible because if you cook at too low of a temperature you end up really dehydrating the tofu in a in a unpleasant way because because to remind you the final product is still a saucy semi-braised pan-seared pan sauce tofu dish um you're not looking for dry mealy texture so we're just trying to build a crust here this is fine here we go when we're searing things you want to put a little bit of pressure on the tofu just so that all parts of the flat surface are in contact with the hot oil and the hot pan so you don't want any parts to bubble up it won't caramelize it won't turn golden brown we're gonna be here for a couple minutes we don't really need to fuss with it too much because as you can see between the nonsec pan and the toughness of the firm tofu it's not going to break because in my opinion you have this nice crispy side on one side the other side doesn't have to get as brown so on the other side it's barely golden brown it's maybe picked up a little bit of color but i like the textural contrast between a hard seared crispy side and a soft side so we're gonna take this off the heat little tofu nuggets okay so here's a silken tofu after about 15 minutes as you can tell the salt doesn't do that much in terms of pushing too much liquid out but it does help and you know that it's marinated because don't see the salt crystals over the top anymore there's enough protein and sugars and all these things inside of the silken tofu to give you a nice golden brown crust it just comes down to being gingerly and being patient same deal non-stick pan heat it up add a little bit of oil again a little bit more than you think you need because you want the sides to crisp up and then you want it to heat up so that it's barely smoking and or dancing there's a good amount of water in here so just make sure that you're being careful that it doesn't you don't get hurt one by one let it sit for a second don't be too nervous and shake it very gently to figure out who wants to get stuck and then start concentrating on those these pieces it also helps to gently gently press on it to try to get it to cook evenly oh man this is what you want if it were to be attached to the tofu but that's fine as you start to dehydrate the outside layer of that silken tofu it's going to start to firm up and become easier and easier to handle these little bits that flake off the side of the silken tofu sometimes they're kind of like the parmesan crisps that accidentally end up in your pan they're salty and they're delicious as long as they're not burning you can keep them there be careful go [Music] one at a time right god but that is what you're hoping for because it's firmed up and then it will become a lot more easier to handle actually the other type of tofu that's really easy to do this with is called egg tofu it's really popular especially in um in taiwan and in japan but it's tofu that has eggs set into it so it has a little it's still got a silken texture but it's a little bit more easy to handle don't play with it too much let that other side form gentle here's a little tip when whenever you're steering tofu or anything that has high moisture content in it if you press down and you don't feel the bubbles coming up as vigorously anymore then you know that it's mostly dehydrated and there isn't that much water in it anymore because the water vapor is not rising through so you know that you can expect that there's at least a little bit of crust as in the case for this piece for example [Music] yeah such as these pieces when the majority of them are done shake use a spatula to gently help release i'm going to move this off to a plate that's a pan-seared silicon tofu this is a variation on i suppose a basic cantonese style brown sauce which is to say that there's soy sauce in it and traditionally oyster sauce it's going to be thickened with a little bit of potato or cornstarch mostly quite basic but celebrating the aromatics of soy sauce oyster sauce garlic scallions and shallots quite simple so oil we're going to cook the two at the same time but the build is almost exactly the same a little bit of oil shallots go in scallion whites the whites and greens are separated because the whites need a little bit more cooking for them to be flavorful once we notice that some of the smaller bits are picking up color and you can start to smell them that's what aromatics means garlic garlic towards the end because you don't want it to burn no ginger in this one i think ginger is a little too strong for this dish and chilies sort of for color but also for a little bit of its pungency so once we're at this stage here picking up a little bit of that nice gentle brown color we are going to start making a sauce very basic potato starch i believe is a better corn starch as is better cornstarch super corn starch so we're just going to add roughly one to one starch to water ratio we're combining on the side getting rid of all of the lumps starch in the end first thing soy sauce we're doing it soy sauce in the dry pan so some of the aromatics inside of the soy sauce can brighten up a little bit of abalone sauce which for me is a gentler version of oyster sauce tofu should go in there and with that same swirling motion we're gonna bring everything together a little bit of alcohol to kick some of that grassiness and to give it a little bit of sweetness and then water just to not to cover the tofu but to give it a little bit of liquid for it to soak up gently swirl to combine especially for this one over here this is up at high heat we're just gonna gently shimmer it because this is a braised dish bring all the flavors together and reduce it to almost the right consistency just let those flavors come together our one final hack here is msg or chicken powder or mushroom powder i think it's pretty essential to this dish mushroom powder is a really great substitute makes people feel like they're cooking more naturally but it's just basically msu i'm gonna give this one a little bit more water now you'll notice that the firm tofu has much more of an aptitude to soaking up liquid you might want to flip it up over a little bit get to absorb all of that sauce just a couple minutes here until you're happy with the sauce this movement for this dish of moving it on top of the heat in a circular motion is pretty important because you don't want to be flipping it right heat's basically going to go off and this is where your judgment this is where you have to make a judgment call so depending on how thick you'd like your sauce so for example this tofu here ended up being a little bit uh wetter than that one over there we're gonna add a little a little more cornstarch you have to make a judgment call each time you make every time you thicken sauce add a little bit on top of the tofu know that corn starch or potato starch both need time to activate they need temperature to activate so once you add it be patient and don't add more until you've given it a couple of seconds and that there already probably was enough just a couple of drops in this case final step once everyone's happy let your scowling greens wilt over the top naturally from the heat and call it a dig from tofu frozen pants here hence your silken tofu as is a little bit of salt to help dehydrate it but you get two totally different textures even though the sauce build is the same and the uh and the both pans here tofu i mean this sauce is half for what makes it [Music] golden brown classic cantonese brown sauce a little bit of heat a little bit of garlic a lot of allium underneath flavors from different places genuinely one of my favorite week night meals this one when we were doing the testing for the recipe the firm tofu that's frozen it was a little novel i mean it's different because it's called this you know um again sort of like more meat-like honeycomb sponge texture and so that when you build a delicious sauce out of abalone sauce and soy sauce it soaks it up all the way if i were nostalgic and i was missing my mom i like the silky more but for most people i know i feel like this is an interesting this frozen firm tofu is an interesting technique that is worth trying worth at least thinking about i hope you get to try one if not both of these techniques for frying tofu next time you cook tofu at home keep an eye out for my next video on food 52 which is about hong kong scrambled egg sandwiches personal favorite

Channel: Food52

Views: 2,162,160

Keywords: sear tofu, tofu, fry tofu, Food52, food, cooking, recipe, chef, foodie, cook, lucas sin, lucas sin tofu, how to fry tofu, how to sear tofu, how to cook tofu, what is tofu, fried tofu recipe, tofu recipes, easy tofu recipes, best tofu recipes, crispy tofu recipes, crispy tofu stir fry, firm tofu recipes, silky tofu recipes, tofu with sauce recipe, chinese vegetarian recipes, in the kitchen with, easy chinese recipes, homemade tofu recipe, how to stir fry tofu, fried tofu

Id: czf4uNUrwQg

Length: 20min 14sec (1214 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 01 2022