For vegetarians, tofu is a necessary source of protein. For everyone else, it is a culinary experience. Unfortunately, it is shunned by many good restaurants simply because you can’t charge like a wounded bull for soy products like you can for salmon steaks, pork belly and confit duck. For that reason, tofu has been relegated to hawker bars, Japanese cafes and Swanston Street eateries.

Those who find the soy wonder-product distasteful or creepy just aren’t educated in the pleasures it can provide. Or they’re confused. Do I want silken tofu, or firm, or organic? Or nuggets, or bean curd? Do I need to cook it? How do I cook it? And in restaurants, what will I get when I order it?

I won’t lie to you: silken tofu is a slimy, sinister creation that requires skill when choosing in restaurants or cooking at home. When you open the packet, it looks like so much unflavoured junket (and we all know how gross junket can be). Beware of a dish called Ma Poh tofu. Lurking on Chinese restaurant menus such as the one at Red Silks, it holds a double-whammy for vegetarians: it is a gelatinous mass of mashed-up silken tofu that slips around the teeth and tongue in a disturbing fashion, and it is accompanied by pork mince. Shanghai Dumpling House does a similar dish, ‘flavoured’ with sweet chilli. It appears in front of you, spilling over the sides of the plates like ectoplasm reminiscent of the Ghostbuster movies. I can only suppose that with some supernatural ability, the silken tofu absorbed and destroyed all taste that the sauce could have provided.

A few Japanese restaurants have managed to create a dish so wonderful out of silken tofu that I often wonder if it is the same substance. It is called Agedashi tofu, and in one soya-based moment it completely restored my faith in the silken stuff. The tofu is cut into neat little cubes, coated in tempura, and deep fried. Sure, sure, I here you say, anything tastes good deep fried. But the change is spectacular: Agedashi tofu is the ugly-duckling-to-swan transformation of the soy world. Try it at Chocolate Buddha, where a few delicious pieces come in a bowl swimming in some golden broth. Also, plenty of Japanese cafes have it nestled in a compartment of their vegetarian bento box.

But I defy anyone except a highly skilled Japanese chef to successfully get silken tofu out of its packet and cut into uniform squares. It splits. It breaks. It heaves a sigh of relief that it is out of its plastic prison and sags into shiny white puddles on your chopping board. You just can’t do it at home. So far, the only thing I can do with it is to chuck it into the blender with soy milk and bananas and make a smoothie. It’s a fantastic protein hit. Other than that, leave it to the experts.

Firm tofu, however, is a delight to cook with and eat. It comes in a refrigerated hunk in the supermarket, and is sometimes labelled organic tofu. Here’s a hint: treat it like meat. Marinate it. Mince it. Fry it like steak.

Seditionists of tofu will tell you it’s like eating cardboard. This is true if you don’t flavour it properly. Tofu is a veritable sponge for flavour. You need to absolutely coat and marinate your tofu, or douse it in spicy sauce, to get the full benefit. In the supermarket you will find pre-marinated and pre-cooked packets of tofu, in slices or nuggets, just begging to be chopped up and tossed into salads or stir-fries. Make tofu burgers by thickly slicing some firm tofu and coating with some satay or teriyaki marinade. Let it soak for twenty or so minutes then pan fry like a regular burger. I make a cow-friendly spag bol by mashing up firm tofu with a fork and substituting it for beef mince. When it’s cooked, have it with pasta and parmesan, or keep cooking and add kidney beans and a packet of taco seasoning for chilli con carne. If you like your sauces from scratch, mix up some soy sauce, kecap manis, fresh ginger, chilli and coriander and use that as a marinade, before stir-frying it all up with some fresh hokkien noodles and snow peas.

There is a dearth of firm tofu in restaurants in Melbourne. I have found it in the Indonesian dish Gado Gado, and in the odd Japanese curry. What you will find instead is fried bean curd, and it’s fantastic. You find it mostly in Thai or Vietnamese places, in dishes like Pad Thai or Laksa. It’s firm and juicy on the inside, and golden and puffy on the outside. It is the least threatening of the tofu family, and it is a good starting point for those who think tofu is the devil’s work. You might have come across it quite by accident, as many restaurants use it to bulk out their prawn dishes. Feeling inspired, I went to an enormous supermarket to gather ingredients for a prawn and tofu curry laksa, but not a bean curd could I find. Sneering at the silken stuff (who buys that crap, anyway, masochists?) I went to search the Asian grocers, and it was definitely worth it a bit of hunting.

Photo Courtesy of massdistraction, Creative Commons