How to smoke tofu on the stovetop

Smoke is in my bones, in my blood.

My love for the flavor goes back to my days as a competitive barbecue judge – and farther back to my West Texas childhood, when my brother and stepdad made a smoker out of an old oil drum and my brother started obsessing. He took me along for the ride, literally, when he would drive around the region and beyond, looking for the perfect brisket.

You’d think that all would have gone out the window when I stopped eating meat, and much of it has. I still remember my last taste of brisket at Austin’s famed Franklin Barbecue more than a decade ago; as I marveled at the smoke ring, tenderness and juiciness, I knew intellectually that it was the Platonic ideal – and emotionally that it didn’t move me. It took me many months to realize that what I had lost a taste for was the beef, not the smoke. Not by a long shot.

Thankfully, nowadays, I can get my smoke fix from so many other foods. I’ve gone on record as a fan of the smoked egg salad at Baltimore’s Neopol Savory Smokery (which has a popular counter at D.C.’s Union Market). I’m a sucker for smoked cheeses, and earlier this summer I couldn’t stop talking about the smoked kalamata olives I discovered on a Whole Foods Market olive bar.

Get the recipe: Stovetop Smoked Tofu

Those are products I buy already smoked. What I’ve done much less over the years is smoke foods myself, even though I have a big backyard that includes an outdoor charcoal grill that I could rig up for low-and-slow cooking (a.k.a. barbecue). I’ll blame it on a combination of a busy family and work life and less tolerance for the heat and mosquitoes of the D.C. summertime (and sometimes spring and sometimes fall), but whenever I cook outside, I want to make it as quick as possible.

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The one home-smoked food that keeps tempting me, though, is one of my other great loves: tofu. One of Neopol’s other standout products is its smoked tofu, which I love to crumble up and bind with mayonnaise and scallions. Every time I do, I marvel at how wonderfully wood-kissed the tofu is, with a flavor that’s simultaneously more pronounced and more nuanced than the variety I buy from the grocery store, as good as that is. I also like to eat it with greens or rice, stir it into chilis or put it on such dishes as okonomiyaki, the Japanese cabbage pancake.

Ever since I read Steven Raichlen’s “Project Smoke” several years ago, I’ve been meaning to try one of his techniques for smoking tofu, but I kept stopping at the hurdle of that outdoor setup. Then a reader asked in a comment recently about how to smoke their own, so I doubled down and realized that Raichlen had already given me the key, with a short reference to how well tofu takes to stovetop (a.k.a. indoor) smoking. I don’t have a stovetop smoker (like those made by Camerons), but I soon realized I didn’t need that, either. With the help of some instructions in Cook’s Illustrated, I used my Dutch oven, wood chips, a steamer basket and some aluminum foil to do the trick.

Turns out, it’s pretty darn easy: You just line the bottom of the pot with foil, sprinkle it with wood chips (unsoaked, which means they’ll start smoking sooner), and top that with a steamer basket. Thick slices of seasoned tofu (I used barbecue rub) go on the steamer, you tent it with more foil, and set the pot over high heat. In just a minute or two, once the wisps start to rise, you reduce the heat, cover the pot and use more foil to seal up the rim. In about 20 minutes, the tofu takes on a lovely smoke flavor. You can eat it as is (it’s delicious), mash it with mayo for the aforementioned salad, or turn it into something even more meal-worthy by searing the tofu in oil and serving with your favorite barbecue sauce.

It’s not classic barbecue, and it’s no project. Instead, it’s one of my favorite proteins, bathed in one of my favorite flavors. And just in case you were wondering, it came with another bonus: Surprisingly, the recipe didn’t set off my smoke detector.

Get the recipe: Stovetop Smoked Tofu

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