Tofu and Transglutaminase

Ok, so far things seem to be going ok. I reduced some carrot juice by about 75%, added coconut cream powder and red curry paste and a little more fresh carrot juice. Meanwhile I heated the tofu to 52C in the circulator, both firm and soft. Once up to temp, I put the tofu and curry mixture into the blender and created a nice homogenous mix. Then I added 1% TG RM and poured immediately into a foil loaf pan that I had pre-punctured with some small holes in the bottom. I mixed in some diced shiitake mushrooms and yellow pepper that had been sauteed and some fresh chopped scallion. It started to set very quickly. Next time I'd probably cool before adding the TG and then heat to set. Currently I've got them weighted down, so hopefully they will stiffen up enough in the next 4 hours that I can cube, pan fry and skewer.

Worked fairly well. Much better than a marinade for tofu

Final plating:

Neat looking @Brian! I love your wood too.

Some things are better left unsaid @johan haha

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Brendan, I was just gonna pretend I didn't see that ...

Chris_Young_80640

@Brian — Really well done. I would have done pretty much exactly what you did.

Thanks @Johan, but I only wish I had wood like that. Service was at a friend's house.

TODD_ANDERSON_36806

@Brian Douglas- A source for those spoons? I love them!!

@Brian if your friend has wood like that I imagine you were only so happy to service it!

As tofu doesn't really take to marinades, this seems like a great way to get a lot of flavor into the tofu. The dish I served above was an amuse of just a simple cube of the seared tofu with a chaser of a lime supreme (enzyme peeled) in a lemongrass/basil/mint oil. Paired with Three Floyds Stack n Stabb, for no reason other than that was the open bottle at the moment. The tofu was good, but a little grainy. It looked like the TG started to react and set before I even poured it out of the blender, so I'd try a little cooler temp next time, especially if I had a little longer to let it set. The pics above used the firm tofu. The silken tofu turned out a little smoother. It holds together enough to slice but definitely a little more fragile.

Came home from my soccer game last night and made a sandwich of swiss cheese, fried egg, slice of bacon and a slab of curry tofu drizzled with the triple herb oil. Not fine dining, but it was a damn tasty sandwich.

I think you could do really nice and clean noodles that way too - especially if you do a bain in bath idea.

@Tucker - I just received the spoons and the little cube trays as a gift earlier in the week, so this was their first outing. Judging from the box, they came from pier 1 in a tasting party set. I don't see them on the website though. They also don't look anything like that on the box. I was pleased when I saw they were more spoon-like than they appeared in the pic.

michaelnatkin

This is very cool. I totally agree with you that marinating tofu is a pointless exercise. I just try to get a nice seared crust on it and pair it with other flavorful ingredients. Smoking is good too. Really good tofu has a delicious sweet, fresh, beany flavor of its own that is worth highlighting, but it is great to have a new option for ways to flavor it all the way through. I'm curious about the grainy texture you found. I'm not surprised, but I wonder if anyone has an idea of how to avoid that? I guess the other option is to make the tofu from scratch from soybeans and flavor it before setting so you don't have to break the original gel.

@Michael - I've not found anywhere local here with fresh tofu. I thought about making my own, but the Asian grocers in town didn't have fresh soy milk and I didn't have enough time to go through the process of making my own this weekend. I'd like to try it sometime though.

Interestingly enough, in my search for info on combining TG and Tofu, I came across a post of yours circa 2010 asking about vegetarian applications of TG. Unfortunately, it didn't really lead me anywhere new. There wasn't much other detail out there, though there are some patents on tofu production methods utilizing TG. None of these seemed to discuss bringing in other flavor components. Other than the brief mention of Campari Tofu from Chef Dufresne in one of the Harvard lectures, I really couldn't find anything that resembled this on the internet.

I will say that the pureed tofu was extremely smooth before I added the TG. When the TG was added, it started to gel/solidify almost immediately. I blended the TG into the puree to fully incorporate it, but I believe it was reacting too quickly at this point. My temp at the time was (I'm estimating) about 50-55C (tofu was 52 C when it went into the blender). From my minimal experience with TG, this temp will cause it to react very quickly, and I think it just happened too fast. My guess is that I basically had a fluid gel in the blender when I killed the power, but by the time I poured into the pans it had begun to form larger 'curds', and then mixing in the particulates further agitated the final gel. Next time I would add the TG at a much lower temp and then try to set after it is in the final mold.

Grainy is probably not the best description, but there was something texturally that wasn't quite what I expected (verging on spongy?). It is also possible that I incorporated too much air in the blender, and/or didn't press it well enough. In addition to starting a little cooler, might be interesting to put it into a chamber vac and try to pull out any air. Something to remember when someday I get a chamber vac. I don't think this texture was a serious issue in the final product, but I do think it creates an opportunity to improve the technique.

If your guess on temp is right that will definitely set it quickly. I think at those temps it would take around 10 minutes give or take for it to be like 95% set so that may be the texture your describing, kind of like pockets of strongly bonded product surrounded by less strongly bonded stuff. I've experienced that in poorly made cheese before.

I'd start really cold and see if that makes a difference and maybe mixing the TG with the carrot juice/flavoring so that you could fold it into the tofu rather than use a blender to disperse and add air and heat. I'm wanting to try this though, one of my favorite dishes is black bean and garlic fried tofu and the idea of putting the flavoring into the tofu itself sounds nice.

@Brendan - let me know how it turns out if you give it a try. I think it could be used for all kinds of flavor infusions. Good thought on adding the TG to the sauce. As long as it wasn't protein based (or reactive with the TG) this would be a great way to get it dispersed.

@Johan - Tofu noodles would be cool if you could get them to hold together. I'd probably leave the tofu plain and sauce separately.

It sounds pretty similar to something I saw Wylie do on iron chef in

I think battle Tilapia - he piped directly into a 72C bath, that was with

a classic and very low circulation.

Chris_Kolbu_16712

This is exciting. I'm toying with the idea of a modernist mapo doufu/tofu, and this is exactly what I was after.

I'll try vacuum infusing next time (no TG on hand), but I don't have particularly high hopes.

The blend and reform is a brilliant idea—how much was the tofu "diluted" by the other ingredients?

@Chris_Kolbu - I wish I could tell you what the relative weights were, but I apparently did not keep very good records. I was concerned about adding too much liquid, so I concentrated the flavors before adding to the tofu. I'd guess it was maybe 2 - 5% of the weight of the tofu, but honestly I just eyeballed it in the blender. I'd likely be a little more rigorous if I tried it again today.

I'd love to see you try it and report back. I should really go back and refine a bit and figure out if blending the TG in at lower temperatures gives a better texture or not. Maybe I'll try it for mapo doufu. That seems like a great fit for the technique.

I don't know why I haven't tried this again. I know tofu purists will probably cringe, but it was freaking delicious. The pic above is the way I served for friends. Then I made this just for me:

I have really fond memories of that sandwich.

I'd eat that.

so would I...

so now you have me intrigued. I went out and bought some tofu about an hour ago. Came home, fried it in a little olive oil with scallions. Tasted like cr@p. So I did it backward from you, threw it in the little food processor with some garlic, scallions,pickled mustard seed, Ponzu and ginger. Then into the SV at 50C for an hour (hopefully to blend the flavors). Then cool it, add the TM and put it in the fridge to allow the TM to set. Ill let you guys know when its done tonite...

The question is to bake or fry after it sets?

Im SVing a rack of lamb tonite and want to serve it with.

http://herbivoracious.com/2012/05/how-to-make-tofu-really-freaking-delicious-tofu-101.html

I love fried tofu but it has to be done right, poorly fried tofu is disgusting

Matt_67991

@RobParker From our own Michael Natkin

Thanks guys. update : pulled it from SV cooled it, whisked in the TG and put in small square dishes (2.5 in) in fridge for 2 hours. It set up what I thought was a little soft. put in steam oven for 10 min the 350F for 10mins. Came out silky smooth and full of flavor.

the lamb was 10/10/10 10 min at 450F 10min at 375F 10 min wrapped in foil. cherry, Balsamic, Zinfandel reduction

@Brendan, how do you fry it properly, and if you can't get the ingredients to make it what do you use? Firm/silk/extra firm?