How to cook TOFU-1

Tofu was something I didn't like to eat when I was growing up. It served pretty simple, especially during summer time. Excess water out of tofu ("how to excess water out of tofu" appears below), cut them as you like, garnish them with sliced green onion, graded ginger and bonito flakes(katsuo-bushi) drizzle soy-sauce over. As an adult, I can appreciate this simple dish, but as a child, it was just tasteless and not much of fun food for me. Don't get me wrong, my mother is a great cook. She has influenced me so many ways. Just this dish was not very kids friendly.

My boys, who are 5 and 7, they eat tofu just fine. However, I made this homemade chicken/tofu nuggets on the day of Super Bowl this year and they loved it!

I've been trying avoid eating at any of the fast food restaurants since I've researched on American diet as a final essay for my English class. There's so many things I'd like to point out and warn everyone still like to eat them but not this time. Anyways, kids are attracted to hamburger, chicken nuggets and fries, even though no toys attached on the meal. So at home, I tried to recreate and make it healthier version of those food items sold at fast food restaurants. I have made homemade hamburger on homemade buns with oven fries and coleslaw on the side often. However, I have noticed my 1st son, he really likes meaty, crunchy and deep fry kinda food. Of course, I look into frozen aisle but surprise to find out that how small amount really chicken is in the frozen chicken nuggets... it's almost any! I couldn't find any list of ingredients for chicken nuggets on web sources but if you happened have them in your freezer please take a look at them. They should start like "wheat gluten" and "onion flavors"... As most of us know that those list of ingredients on pre-made food package are listed by descending order, and chicken was placed on 4th or 5th on chicken nuggets! So I spent few minutes to research how to make chicken nuggets and they looked pretty easy. Here is the procedure how to make chicken nuggets at home.

1. Ground own chicken meat (breast chicken traditionally, but you can add thigh to flavor it up) on food processor/or simply use ground chicken
2. Add some flavors and glue (such as salt and pepper, onion powder and some spices as you like, and starch-I used flour, if you like you can add an egg also)
3. Shape them (I use an ice cream scooper and drop them into a bowl of flour)
4. Pat them with flour/bread crumb/dipped in batter
5. Deep fry them and eat!

I am not vegetarian and I don't think I can be one but I still like to eat healthy food. I had extra tofu in fridge when I made this chicken nuggets, so I have added about a half of tofu(water excessed) into 1 small package of chicken tenderloin on Step 1. Good things is that tofu is fully cooked food, so it reduces the cooking time if you mix into the meat, and tofu barely have much of flavor itself so usually it kind of blends into whatever you adding on to.

A few weeks ago, I didn't have enough grounded beef to make up one of meat loaf recipe, so I added tofu. I made sandwich with left overs and served to our friends, but nobody noticed it until I told them. I highly recommend using "farm" tofu when you cook. Because they have less water, easy to excess water out of it. I like to use silky tofu when I eat as is. You can taste the silkiness of soy much better.

How to excess water out of tofu?

Excess water by placing a tofu on a bowl/deep dish, and traditionally place something heavy like cutting board and wait for 20-30 min. I just let it stand for about a half hour, when I eat them.

No time to wait around for the full half hour? Try wrapping a paper towel around the tofu place it on a plate and cook it using a microwave for 1-2 minutes. But be careful, this is fast and easy but the tofu may be pretty hot to handle it.

Hope you've enjoyed my story. Can't wait share more story about my food!