Sunday, June 14, 2009

Black Tofu


Photo by Sarah Funroe

Earlier this week my friend Nora filmed a movie at my house for a school project. She is using black and white film and wanted to film me doing something with squid ink. After a little research, I found this incredible recipe for calamari cracklings at one of my favorite food blogs, Ideas In Food. Here's what my own squid chips looked like



I haven't seen the footage yet, but Nora says it's very "dramatic." She'll have a digital version in a week or two. I'll be sure to post it here."

After the shoot I had plenty of squid ink left over, so I just had to make something else black. I made tofu. I've been wanting to recreate store-bought baked tofu at home for a long time, and this seemed like a good opportunity. The texture turned out just like I wanted. I'm quite pleased.

To make the tofu, I began by compressing the block in between two plates weighed with a cast-iron frying pan. Be sure to purchase extra-firm tofu for this task, otherwise, it will collapse under the weight. After about an hour the tofu firmed up significantly. I made a marinade of squid ink, fish sauce, lime juice and brown sugar, then sealed the tofu in a ziplock bag overnight. The next day, I baked the tofu on a wire rack at 260 degrees for about four hours. Meanwhile I reduced the marinade, and thickened it with a little cornstarch, then laquered the tofu every 30 minutes or so. Here's what the end product looked like:



Pretty cool, huh? Oh! Oh! And here is a picture of that Lamb Sandwich with the Fava Beans Puree:

Ok folks – see you next time!

Update: here's the video!

Squid Chips from nora tennessen on Vimeo.

1 comment:

  1. That lamb sandwich looks mighty tasty.

    Squid cracklins, eh? That looks like a challenge to undertake at our house!

    - wolfgang

    ReplyDelete