chapotraphouse

When people told me they hated tofu or (far worse) that they were “not fans,” I wish I had said in no uncertain terms: “I love tofu. I am in awe of it. I am set free by it. It will be the finest staple food our galaxy has ever seen.”

I wish, in those exchanges, I had not asked gentle, tolerant questions about a hater’s ridiculous allergy to it, or tofu’s fictional misdeeds and imagined character flaws. More deeply still, I wish I had not reasoned with anyone, patiently countered their ludicrous emotionalism and psychologically disturbed theories. I wish I had said, flatly, “I love tofu.” As if I had been asked about my mother or daughter. No defensiveness or polemics; not dignifying the crazy allegations with so much as a Snopes link.

Hi today I’m going to make a yummy vegan grilled cheese sandwich but instead of cheese I’m GOING TO USE FUCKING ELMER’S GLUE’

New tagline?

It sort of reminds me of the 50's cookbooks that were like "Wrap a slice of bologna around a banana, nestle it on a bed of lettuce and then serve with warm Béarnaise sauce"

It very much feels like people who don't understand how cooking works and just slap shit together and eat it regardless of the flavor or texture

You can make so many dishes without meat or any animal products if you just stop for a second and think about what you're actually doing

Like, Ma Po Tofu is amazing and you can make it vegan by just leaving out the pork, the dish doesn't need it

You’re not wrong that a lot of Vegan cooking influencers are trash and anyone trying to use Tofu as a cheese replacement is deeply unserious.

Tofu is amazing in its own right and there really aren’t any perfect cheese substitutes. The science is improving but they aren’t there yet.

There a lot of fatty starch amalgamations that pass for cheese and cultured cashew butters but ultimately you just kinda learn to live without it and it’s NBD.

There's vegan cheese that is actually good but I'm not paying $15 for an 8 oz packet.

I saw a vegan pizza recipe that used tofu in place of cheese. Like what the fuck is that.

I've seen Indian vegan cooks use tofu as a paneer replacement. Sure, it may not taste exactly, precisely, you-can't-tell-the-difference same, but I think it is kind of stretching it to call it "massacring" the dish. Indian vegans who grew up with palak paneer will try to veganize it so they can enjoy it without the cruelty. It's not that deep.

Also, if vegan influencers put out garbage food then non-vegan ones do too, lol. How many different food influencer videos are there about steak when it's just a slab of flesh that's seasoned with salt and pepper, at the end of the day.

I was agreeing with your title but then I opened the post and I gotta disagree on this specific recipe. The paneer/tofu sub results in some pretty dank dishes.

If you brine up and crumble tofu you've got a very decent feta substitute

Tofu can be a good paneer substitute but you've gotta mess with it.

• Boil in salted water to remove beaniness.

• Brine to make a little salty just like paneer.

• Coat with a very small amount of starch and fry at low heat to seal. This keeps the brine in.

This will make the tofu neutral and a little salty and have a texture close to paneer.

But otherwise yeah I agree tofu isn't similar enough to cgeese to be a substitute.

Stop massacring animals for time honored dishes?

Keep looking. There's some banger recipes out there. I can't speak for paneer specifically (I've never had it), but vegan cooking and cheese substitutes are getting better all the time. For example, if you want a grilled cheese or quesadilla, you can make a vegan one indistinguishable from the original.

People need to specify if their using it as the "protein" substitute or because it actually replicates taste/texture.

Yeah everyone knows nooche is the superior cheese substitute 😎

There are lots of different types of tofu with very different characteristics. In my supermarket I have at least 8 different types.

When I make a paneer style dish with tofu there's a type I buy that is very similar. It's pressed for extra firmness but in a way that does not make it more grainy like extra firm tofu normally is, keeping it smooth like paneer.

There's also types of tofu that melt and behave like other varieties of cheese.

If you have a better vegan paneer alternative just replace the tofu in the recipe with that. Recipes are there to be changed and adjusted.

I replace paneer with tofu all the time and the texture is spot on, and paneer isn't that flavorful in the first place.

This, but also for Keto. "I can enjoy all the same meals as before, just by substituting some ingredients for almond flour, stevia, and oat-based sawdust!"

The whole idea of general-purpose substitutions for ingredients is silly. Nooch is a great powdered cheesy flavoring for a snack. Those imitation cheese slices made out of, like, compressed soybean oil or some nonsense, are great on a sandwich. If you swap them around, they're nonsensical. Foods have complex chemistry and different recipes are built around different properties of those foods.

Whenever I see a block of tofu my brain has always just assumed it tastes like feta cheese

Unrelated but I think some people use furu (fermented tofu) as a flavoring for nut cheeses.

We shouldn’t enjoy food. Consumption is bad.

There are some really good Vegan "Cheeses" but ultimately they can replicate the taste but the texture just won't be there and they struggle to get the level of Umami of even fairly light cheeses. They're a loooong way from a passable Brie.