Tofu, Seitan, and Other Main Dishes
2 min readIf such a poll were possible, vegetarians the world over would surely rank tofu as one of China’s greatest inventions, right up there with paper and moveable type. Created over 2,000 years ago from the curds of soybeans containing the nine essential amino acids, tofu is a complete protein; consequently, it is universally recognized as the quintessential meat alternative.
Though bland on its own, tofu has an uncanny ability to take on the flavors of the other foods and seasonings with which it is cooked; it is used in both savory and sweet dishes. In Chinese cuisine, tofu is eaten in a myriad of ways, including stir-fried, stewed, baked, braised, grilled, deep-fried, in soup, cooked in sauce, stuffed with fillings, and, sometimes, raw. Tofu, of course, isn’t the only meat substitute that the Chinese have perfected. Seitan, or wheat gluten, also known as ―mian jin‖ in Chinese (literally, ―noodle or dough tendon‖), originated in ancient China as an imitation meat for adherents of Buddhism.
Made by washing wheat flour dough with water until all the starch dissolves, leaving insoluble gluten as an elastic mass that is then cooked before being eaten, wheat gluten takes three primary forms—fried, steamed, or baked. Other popular tofulike meat substitutes are rice tofu, or ―mi dou fu,‖ which is rice milk boiled to a curd in a method similar to tofu, and konjac tofu, or ―moyu dou fu,‖ a gelatinous, fiber-rich mass with almost zero calories, which is made from the starchy corm of the konjac plant grown in southern China. As the following flavorful vegan main dishes will validate, meat never again has to be an option.
