Silken Tofu With Spicy Soy Dressing

A favorite. Uncut, cut into blocks, cut into cubes, cut into strips, lightly crushed, cut into stars with a small cookie cutter, scooped into balls with a melon baller. If you want it spicier, add more chili oil, but if you want it less spicy, add less chili oil, or even no chili oil at all, and it still works! If you like cilantro, add cilantro, or if you don’t like cilantro, don’t add cilantro, and still, it works. It is… a block of tofu, with stuff on it!

A more Cantonese preparation would be to water down the soy sauce (same amount water as soy, or less). Makes the a lot more "drinkable", so that you don't accidentally get too much salt in one bite.

We often have this dish, but I can’t imagine it without the liberal addition of fresh grated ginger!

The picture shows small blocks of tofu yet step 2 says nothing about cutting the tofu into smaller pieces. It's easy to infer that step, but we usually get more accurate preparation descriptions.

actually, the dish would be just as tasty and presentable with a solid block of tofu. you'd get the additional pleasure of being able to spoon bite-size pieces of tofu. sometimes the best way to read these recipes is as a suggestion.

I like to place the block of tofu in a small saucepan, cover it with cold water, bring it to a gentle boil, turn off the heat and let it sit in the hot water to warm through. Drain and dress and spoon and enjoy.

A shockingly delightful meal for so little work. This recipe is meant to be altered so use it as a base. I served a chopped tofu block served over rice. I added a chopped cucumber and let it marinate in the sauce while the rice was cooking, added a great crunch to the dish. I'll be adding this to my no-recipe needed quick meal arsenal for sure.

I’ve been making the Moosewood Cookbook tofu salad for decades. This simpler version has appeal. The trick fir me is to cut into blocks and marinate overnight in the sauce. The tofu will soak up the rich, umami flavors and gain texture.

I think i would add less sesame oil and some lime juice. It helps balance out the flavors so that the oil doesn’t overpower everything else. Extremely tasty either way though!

Does anyone else sub sauerkraut for kimchi in these situations? I love having the texture of fermented cabbage in dishes like this, but prefer to have control over the spice and funkiness levels (which I can regulate with chili oil, Lao gan ma, fish sauce, etc) and I sometimes find kimchi kind of overpowering. (I do like it as a flavor, mind you.) Tbh in the pandemic I’ve taken to adding properly-fermented sauerkraut to most over-rice dishes and spicy soups like pozole. Always makes me happy.

This is a nice variation on something I regularly ate in my childhood. For a much simpler version my Japanese dad just grated fresh ginger on top of the tofu cubes then garnished it with thinly sliced scallions and katsuobushi (dried bonito) flakes and finished it off with a light drizzle of low sodium soy sauce. So yummy and refreshing especially in the hot Florida summers!

Instead of raw you can also add boiling salted water to the cubed tofu and let it sit for about 15 min before draining. Dispels the beaniness of the tofu a bit and warms it up (if you're looking to have it on a cool night instead of a warm one).

Silken tofu is different than soft tofu. The texture is different.

What if you don’t have chili oil handy? What is a good substitute?

Sauce in top of cold tofu - doesn’t cut it. And while I drained the tofu, when I cut it into cubes, it watered down the sauce. Threw the sauce over rice noodles with some cubes of warm tofu thrown in. Much better.