TOFU IS THE MOST OVERRATED INGREDIENT EVER
Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: tofu is the most overrated ingredient ever.
The Asian cuisine, I love it. Green curry is my great love, but in Bali, I also ate my fill. Saté, soto ayam, rendang, you name it. I even took a cooking course and tried to make these dishes just as delicious myself. However, one ingredient is my biggest enemy, and I have literally never eaten it and felt satisfied. Tofu. What are you supposed to do with this?
It tastes like nothing, it looks like nothing, and it is actually just nothing. Before I came to Asia, I occasionally encountered it in the Netherlands. In a poke bowl, for example, or as a meat substitute in another dish. I definitely don't think tofu should be a substitute for anything, because it is anything but a worthy replacement. If I replace the chicken at my regular Thai takeout with tofu, I always regret it. Then I spend ten minutes fishing out all those sponge-like pieces, and then I feel even worse afterward because that weird texture absorbs all my delicious curry, leaving me with less.
How can people find this tasty?
Look, I can understand that you don't find tofu as annoying as I do. But how can you possibly find this truly delicious? It. Is. Nothing. That sponge-like texture you bite into, so soggy. And then that taste. Well, taste... I can't think of any other ingredient that has such a meaningless flavor. Even water tastes like more. And that's impressive.
‘But tempeh then, that's tasty’
You may think that, but that's a completely different ingredient. Yes, both are made from soybeans, but that's where the similarity ends. Tempeh can actually be tasty, and then you still have a bit of the idea of actually eating something. But this piece of soft rubber is just a meaningless filler for your dish. Totally fine if you're going vegetarian, but then just go for more vegetables and please leave these chunks of nothingness out.
The times I vent my disgust for tofu to my surroundings, I always get the response that ‘it wasn't prepared well’. Fair enough. But even if it's well-prepared, it's still nothing. I will never be convinced of this, and I will see it as my mission to drive tofu out of the kitchen as much as possible. It doesn't belong there at all. The trash can, that's a good place for it!
