Bryanna Clark Grogan’s Vegan Feast Kitchen/ 23rd Century Table

The "Tofu Xpress"

I've just been given the opportunity to test out a great new gadget for the vegetarian and vegan kitchen-- a nifty tofu press called the "Tofu Xpress". It was invented by a clever Pennsylvania woman and is the result of 5 years of testing. Here's how it works (pictures taken by me in my kitchen!):

I pressed a 1 lb. block of commercial medium-firm tofu. You put the spring-activated top over the tofu and snap in place:





Place the whole thing in your refrigerator for 30-60 minutes:


Look at the water that was pressed out of it in the next picture. I weighed it after pressing and almost half it's original weight (16 oz.) in water was pressed out! It weighed 8.6 oz. after pressing for an hour.



After pressing, I sliced it into 8 slices and placed it back in the Tofu Xpress (drained and washed), with a marinade (2 parts light soy sauce and 1 part maple syrup with a little sesame oil), covered it with the flat lid and let it marinate in the refrigereator for a few hours:





Then I browned the slices in a nonstick skillet over high heat with the marinade poured over it:


I turned the slices over and cooked them (watching carefully) until all of the marinade was soaked up and the slices were appetizingly glazed:



The tofu was delicious! It had a different texture and mouth feel than commercial extra-firm tofu, I found. It was firm all right, but smoother and not as dry-- it's hard to explain!  It makes the BEST scrambled tofu-- see my version of Julie Hasson's great tofu scramble using pressed medium-firm tofu.