Marinated Baked Tofu

On Wednesday night, I made my first attempt at baked tofu.  People tend to either love or hate tofu.  I grew up eating tofu a lot in traditional Korean dishes so you can count on me to be one of the people who love tofu.  Bret, on the other hand, is slowly learning to like tofu and I've realized that he only really likes it when it has a lot of flavor and texture.  For this reason, I've mostly pan-fried tofu for stir-fry dishes but I've heard great things about baking tofu and I wanted to give it a try.

First, I purchased a package of extra firm tofu.

I drained the package and carefully sliced it.  I totally need to get a tofu press like this (hint, hint - my birthday is coming up after all) but in the meantime, I have to use what I can.  I laid down a hand towel and on top of that, I put down a clean washcloth.  I carefully placed the tofu slices on half of the washcloth and folded the other half over it.  And then I put a flat cutting board and a heavy iron skillet on top of the washcloth.  Trust me, it looked as crazy as it sounds.  I pressed the water out of the tofu for about half an hour and in the end, it looked like this:

While the tofu was being pressed, I had put together an easy marinade from this Epicurious recipe for Marinated Baked Tofu.  I used all of the ingredients except for the honey or sugar.

Using a small shallow baking pan, I carefully laid the tofu out and poured the marinade over the tofu.  I made sure to brush the marinade on top of the tofu.

I put a plastic wrap on the pan and put it in the fridge for fifteen minutes.  After that, I turned the tofu over and brushed the marinade on the top side again and put back in the fridge for another fifteen minutes.  By the time I took the tofu out of the fridge, most of the marinade has been soaked up by the tofu.

I laid the tofu out on a parchment-lined baking tray and baked the tofu for twenty minutes at 350 degrees.  I flipped the tofu over and baked it for another twenty minutes.  I've got to tell you that the aroma of the marinade made our kitchen smell unbelievable!

When it was done, the tofu had a nice chewy texture and plenty of great flavors!  Bret liked it so much that he asked that I bake tofu the next time we make stir-fry!

Tell me, do you like tofu or do you hate it?