Tofu Loveliness

Yesterday, my dear friend Boone and I made dinner together after our workout.  We made a red curry with vegetables and tofu.  The curry itself was good, using Mae Ploy red curry paste, but the kicker was the tofu itself.  I purchased the tofu at our local Korean market, AmKo.  It was a firm tofu that came in 1/4 lb. blocks.  I knew I wanted the tofu to stand up to the curry and not fall apart, but the question was how to do this without frying it, which is the typical way of doing this. 

I had seen a wonderful show with Ruth Reichel not long ago where she had travelled to the South of China.  There, she watched as a man made homemade, artisinal tofu.  The press!  So, I pressed that tofu by putting in on a wooden cutting board, which I had put on a slant.  I laid upon it another cutting board, upon which I placed a small pot.  Immediately, water began pouring out.  I increasingly added more and more weight over the course of an hour, ultimately placing about 35 pounds of pressure on it (with a large stockpot filled with water that I later used to water my plants).  After an hour of this torture, the tofu was quite firm.  I lightly oiled it, and placed in in the oven with a bit of salt, for about an hour and a half.  That tofu was wonderful, but because I baked it, the texture was more cheese like than I would have preferred.  I think next time, I will not bake the tofu, rather increase the weight as I did, but instead, leave the weight on for several hours.