People tend to associate tofu with Asian cooking, which is natural since tofu was originated in Asia. Nowadays, more and more westerners are turning their attention towards the health benefits of tofu or soy based food. However, how they eat tofu seems to be limited to a few dishes with deep fried bean curd or a bit of tofu floating in miso soup. Tofu, bland on its own, can bore a lot of people who haven’t develop their taste for it. I, on the other hand, growing up on tofu,  have various ways of eating tofu; off the top of my head….

Fresh tofu or egg coated and pan fried tofu garnished with spring onion and toasted seaweed and drizzled with soy sauce

Fried rice with fried crumbly tofu and egg

Fried tofu braised with sweet soy sauce or spicy soy sauce

Tofu and vegetable dumplings

Tofu pancake

Tofu burger patties – try making meat patties mixed with tofu

A variety of soup dishes with either hard or soft tofu

Satay Tofu – my all time favourite

The list goes on…..

Today, looking at a white block of tofu, I thought tofu and haloumi had a lot in common, then the idea of faking haloumi with tofu came to my mind. To copy the saltiness of haloumi, I coasted the nicely cut tofu squres with a reasonable amount of sea salt and left them to get all the water out of the tofu so that it would be nice and firm when cooked, and has the salty taste. I pan fried the tofu slices until golden and crispy and topped each with a bit of brie cheese to give a cheesy flavour to it. Top them on the bed of salad, a good mix of rocket leaves and some grilled eggplant, carrot or any vegies you can get hold of at the time, and drizzle a generous amount of extra olive oil and sprinkle some nuts, pine nuts or sunflower nuts or whatever nuts you have on hand.

I bet you will easily be  fooled by this fake haloumi.