Are there any tofu lovers out there? If there are, you’re pretty hard to find. Most of what Mrs J reads that involves tofu seems to revolve around how to avoid tofu. Hmm…

Mrs J has never cooked with tofu before, ever. She’s had tofu in various Asian dishes in Asian restaurants. Good stuff. But none that left her with a tofu craving. And still tofu keeps coming up in conversation as a staple of healthy cooking, being low in fat and cholesterol while high in protein.

Tofu, apparently, is made of soy (milk) done in various textures. Clearly, none of these textures help to produce a distinct taste in the tofu itself. When tasting Mrs J gets something vaguely nutty. Maybe.

Tofu advocates counter that tofu is great for absorbing the tastes of sauces and spices. Also on the bright side, cooking with tofu is apparently very quick and easy. Allegedly, you can stir fry it, cook it in soup, make desserts with it, fry it, and even bake it.

Is that a challenge or what?

Mrs J decided to start with a simple vegetable, tofu and noodles dish.

Get an onion and slice it. Brown in a bit of olive oil in a pan. Add 100g of cleaned and cut haricots verts and 100g of carrots cut into sticks. You don’t need to do matchsticks, but they should be reasonably thin.

Toss the veg with the onions and olive oil for a minute, then add 500ml of double strength chicken (or vegetable) stock and about 0.5 dl of soy sauce. Lower the heat.

Add about 100g of dry Chinese egg noodles, broken into pieces. Let soak for a minute or two and give a good stir before adding the cubed tofu. From now on be very gentle when stirring. Leave to steam under a lid until the noodles are completely done. Stir again and season with black pepper and more soy sauce if required.

Serve in a deep dish or a bowl with chopsticks, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Mrs J learned a lot from this dish. She’d like to try a firmer tofu. She’s the kind of cook that prefers ruggedized ingredients… Also, she’s curious to see what marinating tofu might do to further infuse it with flavour.

Watch out for the next tofu-do…