making tofu that doesn't suck

At least once a year I like to bring some of my famous Julian's

tofu

into this kitchen. I'm serious. I'm up the night before pressing the

tofu

. I think it was only a matter of time before he welcomed some kind of office into the kitchen and here we go he spills tofu all over the office floor for real I was literally up last night pressing tofu that part is no joke that It's real Last night I pressed one, two, three four blocks of extra firm organic tofu, so I could do my best to try to make the tofu delicious.

I have a few recipes up my sleeve. I discovered many ways, actually not many. I discovered some ways that really work to make tofu delicious. I was fed a lot of tofu. Growing up and I remember never really enjoying it, I always thought it was very bland and bland and the reason I thought that is because tofu is incredibly bland, especially when you take it out of the package and feed it with very little preparation, With a little effort and a good tofu press, you can make tofu taste really, really good, so I had this idea, thanks to you guys on Twitter, to make some different tofu recipes because it seems like a lot of people don't know what. do with tofu and it's okay because at one point I didn't know what to do with it either and now I know and it's great and I eat it and it's wonderful so I'm going to try to make Nashville spicy.

Tofu kung pao tofu and tofu bacon two of those three things I've made before. I have made the Kung Pao and the Tofu Bacon and I know they work, the Tofu Bacon is what we will start with because we have to marinate it. then the kung pao tofu comes with much more preparation, we will have a lot of vegetables. I have some rice in the rice cooker that will be our Asian style with the tofu and lastly I'm going to try

making

it for the first time. natural spicy tofu I've never had Nashville spicy tofu I've never had Nashville spicy chicken anything natural spicy I just searched for a recipe when a certain taco recommended I make that on this channel, so I'm going to try it for the first time. so that could be great, that could also be bad, we'll see some of the fun here, won't we?

If there is something that is important to do with the tofu to make it viable, press to get the water out of this thing so you can buy it as a tofu press. I bought mine on Amazon. They are quite cheap. You just place the tofu in there, press it down and it slowly drains the water. Then you have a dry block of truly versatile kitchen supplies. Honestly, it's really crunchy. it can take on flavor, it's like a sponge cake, so for the tofu with bacon I'll just cut it lengthwise and try to get a long thin piece and I want to keep them relatively thin, but not too thin, so they break down the tofu.

Bacon is one of those things I'll make and then put it on everything. I'll put it in salads. I'll put it in a sandwich. I'll eat it alone. Everything is ready. Now let's make our little marinade. You will need a few ingredients for this liquid smoked soy sauce. Tomato paste. Maple syrup. Water. That's all. You shouldn't throw all that stuff in here. Like last week's nacho cheese, it's not complete without tomato paste. bacon, I put half a cup of soy sauce, a tablespoon of liquid smoke which is what will give it its smoky flavor, then I add a little bit of water and this is not in the recipe, but I like to add just a little bit of oil in the marinade because I feel like it coats the tofu bacon really well and then we're just going to put all of our tofu in there to make sure they don't stick to each other and we're going to dip all the pieces in well, splatter a little bit on your shirt like I just did. and yours to let it marinate.

I mean, ideally you'd like to keep this in the marinade for a couple of hours, but we're just going to do it for 30 minutes because that's all you really need, so for those of you who've never tried kung. Pao tofu is literally exactly what it sounds like, it's like kung pao chicken but instead it's with tofu and if you get the right batter the sauce is easy, there should be no problems

making

this, it requires a little prep but it's worth the effort. It's one of my favorite recipes. We're going to need two bowls of wet and dry ingredients, we know they're dry, wet and dry, okay, let's go wet and you're going to put flour, cornstarch, baking powder and a little salt in the dry ingredients, bring them together and then to the wet ingredients is more sauce, in fact, you'll need some imitation sambal, some soy sauce, maple syrup, rice wine vinegar, and some of this, which is amazing, is a fish sauce plant base that really helps dishes because it adds that fishy flavor. you have a little bit of vegetable broth and lastly, we're going to add just a couple teaspoons of cornstarch to help thicken the sauce a little bit.

You will chop a leek, this really helps. refreshes the taste of the final dish because it's all very hot, spicy and fried, so guys, today is all about becoming the best, so boy, okay, embrace your inner soy, boy, let's have a couple of scallions and hit them together. Get all the water out definitely don't do that I just soaked a bunch of stuff in the kitchen cool okay that will go with the leeks now it's time to get spicy and it's also time to remember not to rub your eyes, nose nor the ears. or any other part of your body after handling this food you will regret it you will take this hot pepper and we are going to seed it and we are only going to take about half of it and we are going to chop it very finely and this is going to go along with our chives and leeks to accompany the final dish of Kung Pao, this will give it some intense heat, baby, I want to wash my hands, definitely something you should do too, you should see the beautiful mountain of paper towels that I'm an idiot while I cook and I film a recipe.

I should use hand towels, but sometimes it's really unpleasant and I don't want all sorts of things getting on the hand towels, so that's really awesome. Next time we go to tofu. Kung Pao sized bikes, let's see, let's try this out here. I think it's okay. I think that's okay, so we'll cut them to this size. This might be my favorite part of the recipe. First we will add a little water. not a little bit of water and then we'll add vodka to our dough. Make sure your vodka is nice and snug, although that's fine, don't let your vodka be cold.

You'll make about half a cup, two shots of vodka glug glug glug and I'm going to whip this up with my handy mini whisk whisk whisk whisk I think it's a whisk you can see this texture is really perfect it's not too thin and it's not too thick and what what we're going to end up doing is we're literally just going to cover these pieces of tofu with the batter and we're going to fry them in a wok with a little bit of vegetable oil until they're crispy and then we're going to stir-fry and stir-fry these beautiful vegetables with a little bit of garlic and ginger, let's put it all together. put it on top of some rice and that will be our dish.

One step that is super important and a little tedious in the Kung Pao recipe is that you are going to take some Szechuan peppercorns. I have a little reserve and what you. What you are going to do is fry them in a little oil to create your own chili oil or Szechuan pepper oil. I'm literally going to heat up some oil to the point where it shimmers and is very, very hot. some of these maybe like a tablespoon of these peppercorns fry for about five seconds and then I strain the oil and that's how we get our oil for this kung pow recipe.

I'm going to make it spicy, it's going to give it a really nice flavor kick and it's really hot, dangerous wild activity to do in the kitchen, so okay, so this is my method for doing this. It's also my method for drinking coffee. I just walk around the house. This will be super fast. The point where you'll wonder if it really does anything when you fry it like it's fried at that speed, but the peppercorns are so full of heat and flavor that all you need is five seconds, like a heaping tablespoon, ladies and gentlemen. Start your engines BAM three two one cut that's it.

I'm going to turn off the burner in a second but first you're going to lift this extremely hot wok and get all the oil out of it. This is our fresh Szechuan chili oil, okay? I think we are ready for the kung pao tofu to be crispy. Really nice needs, like maybe another two minutes, perfect time for a taco break. I think there's always time for a taco break. I'm going to start heating up some oil in this pan and this. is where we are going to cook our tofu bacon since it has been marinating for 45 minutes.

Oh, the bacon has finished marinating. I took it out of the container and I'm going to dry it before frying it, since it has all the flavor. It's already soaked in it, so it's not appetizing yet, but we'll get there, okay, I like to multitask, so I'll start cooking the bacon, oh, it's jumping, it's jumping, it's jumping, this is probably the most delicious. batch i have ever made kung pao tofu here is the extraordinary kung pao tofu it actually came out very well now if the bacon would calm down there could you calm down please how well the sound is quite annoying but its not going to stop us from trying our beautiful kongou tofu I just made one of my favorite things 10 out of 10.

I've tried it so many times and I know I like it, but every time I make it I forget how much I love it. It just has such a great flavor profile, okay, this one legitimately looks like a piece of bacon, it's got the curvature and everything, so it's obviously spicy and you have to be careful, but if you're excited like me, you can just need to choose the flavor of this bacon recipe, it's really good and the texture is pretty good, but to be completely honest, I feel like bacon is one of those plant-based foods, it's really hard to replicate and right now I don't.

I don't think there's a perfect alternative, yeah, until we find it and until scientists introduce us to beyond bacon or whatever, this is a good way to make something that tastes like bacon and has a similar texture. I like how my workspace gets more and more filled with nonsense as the video goes on, who's ready for some Nashville Spicy Tofu? Oh, we have a candidate. This was recommended to me by Choco Taco, who I assume has tried Nashville spicy tofu. I personally don't even do it. I know what that is when I heard it I thought it sounds cool.

I was in Nashville, it was fun. I know what tofu is good and that was my decision, so I'll have your three bowls and one bowl you. We're going to mix up some almond milk, actually this is Oh, milk, apple cider vinegar, and hot sauce, and I choose red hot Franks, so in the next bowl we'll have just a cup of flour and in the last one bowl we will add our Hanko. clumps of bread we're not going to fry this we're going to bake this so I'm going to set the oven to 375 let's do it here so you're going to grab a baking sheet over spray it with a little bit of baking spray okay so flour wet flour wet panko okay so let's make this sauce because the Nashville spicy tofu is almost ready for the sauce we need paprika, garlic powder, agave, olive oil, vegan butter and hot sauce, this looks so good, This is Nashville Spicy Tofu and it looks better than I thought it would, so there you have it three ways to make tofu not taste like tofu that's how you say a Nashville delicacy we're new parents to a rescued greyhound and it's completely out of stock, that's the last week but we need to refuel it's important to refuel this is tofu Oh easy, it's good I haven't tried the choco, I suggest this chakkar come whenever you want, I'll make you some natural hot tofu, we can go shopping together, that was.

Our goal was to make tofu taste like something else and we did just that. I think some buffalo looks better than game day food of Buffalo cauliflower. This is, you know, honestly, any game and the hot sauce, the sauce is also very good, right? Yes, it's like Buffalo. times 10 well I know you love your Buffalo. Did we meet our goal today? That's completely subjective, but I would say we did it because I'm satisfied. I have three dishes here, none of which look like a block of tofu like last week. I counted how many times I said the word tofu leave it in the comments below and then take a drink every time I did it and then I'm not responsible for it take your drink of hydrated water okay now is the time you ask for the check , that's for the check, okay, yeah, don't go to dinner or run.

I'll send my dogs after you. Now I have three of them, bunny, do you want to say hello to the video? This is her, if this is a bunny, yes, this food is not for you. she's very nervous about noises and people's things oh pshh where were you you didn't even show up to work as a sous-chef pshh I was waiting for you all the work I did it myself I cut everything I prepared everything and you're not even in your chef Oh, no, anyway, thank you all for checking out another recipe that I made in my kitchen because this is something that we do now and that I'm really enjoying, so thanks for joining us and feel free to tweet me. suggestions or leave them in the comments below for recipes I should make in the future because I'll listen.

Do you have better ideas than me? I'm going to eat these three meals for the restof the day and tell my stomach that it is a business expense thank you I will be here until I never buy E