Tofu

One of my aunts, a former pageant queen, revealed to me her secret for flawless skin texture: tofu. This woman would eat fresh unseasoned tofu for lunch, by itself. I wouldn’t be able to tolerate that on a daily basis, or at all, but I did adapt her tip to my lifestyle.

I try to eat about one carton of tofu per week.

As a sweet dessert or snack, drizzle sweetened condensed milk over silken tofu or edamame tofu (light green in color) and serve with fruits, like mangoes, lychees or watermelon. Westerners who claim to dislike tofu have never had it served up this way!

Firm tofu can be stir-fried with any assortment of vegetables and meats. In spite of the warning to avoid too much soy sauce, soy sauce and tofu make a delicious combination. When making dumplings, crab cakes, or deep-fried shrimp balls, I always make sure to include mashed up tofu.

This isn’t a cooking blog, so recipes will have to be found elsewhere. Google is your friend.

Listen to Mom: Avoid Soy Sauce

Soy products are great for you, with all that antioxident-rich goodness; but dark soy sauce I stay away from. Many have heard the old wives’ tale to avoid soy sauce because it will darken your skin. True or not, the stuff is just unhealthy. For one, it’s extremely high in sodium.

This doesn’t mean I don’t add a spoonful of natural-brewed light soy sauce to my spinach and tofu soup or drizzle it over broiled salmon, but I do cut it out of my diet as much as possible. And if you’re a cooking snob, soy sauce is the amateur’s way of flavoring Asian cuisine, so consider it a culinary challenge to find alternatives for soy sauce.

Admittedly, few ingredients in the kitchen are quite as versatile as soy sauce. Thus, if you must, at least invest in the higher quality kind made from black bean (as opposed to glutinous wheat, which is what the standard variety is made of). Always read the label! A good rule of thumb is if there’s English on the label, it’s probably sub-standard.