Pan Fried Tofu — When Scratch Cooking Becomes Second Nature

Post-Thanksgiving quiet. The holiday adrenaline has faded and December approaches with its particular weight — the darkest month, the shortest days, the season that demands joy and often delivers something more complicated. I've been thinking about the year. Nine months of Korean cooking. Thirty-five weeks of blog entries (though I wasn't writing a blog — this is just how I track my life now, in weekly increments, because the discipline of recording keeps the progress visible). Twenty-two dishes mastered, more or less. A therapist who sees me. A Korean vocabulary of approximately two hundred words. These are the metrics of a project called "becoming myself," and while I wouldn't call the project complete, the trend line is clear.

This week I made tteok — Korean rice cakes — from scratch. Not the shelf-stable, vacuum-packed kind from H Mart. From scratch. With sweet rice flour and water and a steamer and my hands. The process is physical: mix the flour and water into a dough, steam it, knead it while it's still hot (it burns your hands — everyone says this, Maangchi says this, the cookbook says this, and it's still shocking when the steaming mass of rice dough hits your palms), and then shape it. I made garaetteok — long cylindrical rice cakes, the kind used in tteokbokki and tteokguk (rice cake soup, a New Year's dish I'm planning for January). The kneading was satisfying in a primal way — working the dough, feeling it become smoother and more elastic under my hands, shaping it into long ropes. My first batch was uneven but functional. The rice cakes were chewy and slightly sweet and completely different from the store-bought kind, the way fresh pasta is different from dried pasta: alive. That's the word. The fresh tteok felt alive.

I used the homemade tteok in tteokbokki — the spicy rice cake dish I made weeks ago with store-bought cakes. The difference was dramatic. Fresh tteok absorbs the sauce differently, takes on the gochujang more fully, has a bounce and a chew that the packaged kind can't match. I ate the entire batch at the counter and thought: I just made rice cakes from scratch. From rice flour and water and my hands. That is objectively impressive for a person who couldn't make rice nine months ago.

Dr. Yoon asked me this week if I've thought about searching for my birth mother. The question landed like a stone in a pond — ripples spreading in every direction. I said, "No." She said, "Is that a 'no, I haven't thought about it' or a 'no, I've thought about it and I don't want to'?" I said, "Both. Neither. I don't know." She nodded. She didn't push. That's one of the things I appreciate about Dr. Yoon — she opens doors and waits to see if I walk through. She doesn't push me through. The birth mother question is a door I've been standing beside for twenty-three years, and the handle is right there, and I know it's there, and I'm not ready. The cooking is enough for now. The identity work is enough. The door will be there when I'm ready. It's not going anywhere. She's not going anywhere. (Probably. Possibly. I don't know if she's alive. That's part of the ambiguous loss: I don't even know if there's someone behind the door.)

Saturday was Karen's potato leek soup — a winter dish, creamy and mild, served with crusty bread from the bakery on Main Street. I brought a container of my homemade tteokbokki. Karen tried a rice cake and said, "The texture is so interesting — chewy, like mochi." I said, "Similar, yeah. Tteok is made from the same rice flour." Karen nodded, absorbing, adding another Korean food word to her growing vocabulary. She's been doing this all year — learning the names, trying the food, asking questions — and the accumulation of her effort is its own kind of love letter. She can say kimchi, japchae, tteokbokki, banchan, doenjang, gochujang, and bulgogi. She can't pronounce any of them perfectly. She tries anyway. That's Karen. That's love.

Kevin texted: "Maria says hi. She wants your kimchi recipe." Maria wants my kimchi recipe. Kevin's girlfriend wants to make Korean food because of me. The ripple effect of one Korean adoptee learning to cook in a Capitol Hill kitchen is reaching Portland via my brother's girlfriend. I sent the recipe. I sent it with the note: "Wear gloves unless you want red hands for three days." Then I added: "Actually, don't wear gloves. The staining is part of it." It is. The red hands are part of it. The evidence on your skin that you made something. That you touched it. That it's yours.

Making tteok from scratch — kneading hot rice dough with my bare hands, shaping it into cylinders, watching it come alive in a way no vacuum-sealed package ever could — reminded me that the most honest Korean cooking is the kind that leaves a mark on you. Pan-fried tofu belongs in that same category: humble, tactile, requiring nothing more than attention and heat, but capable of absorbing bold flavor the way fresh rice cakes absorb gochujang. I served this alongside the last of my homemade tteokbokki, and the two together felt like a complete meal, the kind you don’t need to explain to anyone.

Pan Fried Tofu

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 25 min | Servings: 2

Ingredients

• 1 block (14 oz) firm or extra-firm tofu
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon gochujang (Korean chili paste)
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons neutral oil (avocado or vegetable), for frying
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds, for garnish
• 2 scallions, thinly sliced, for garnish

Instructions

1. Press the tofu. Remove tofu from packaging and wrap in a clean kitchen towel or several layers of paper towel. Place a heavy skillet or book on top and press for at least 10 minutes to remove excess moisture. Cut into 1/2-inch slabs or cubes.
2. Make the sauce. In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, gochujang, sesame oil, rice vinegar, sugar, and minced garlic. Set aside.
3. Fry the tofu. Heat neutral oil in a non-stick or cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add tofu in a single layer without crowding. Cook undisturbed for 3—4 minutes until a deep golden crust forms, then flip and cook another 3—4 minutes on the other side.
4. Glaze with sauce. Reduce heat to medium-low. Pour sauce over the tofu and toss gently to coat. Cook for 1—2 minutes, letting the sauce caramelize slightly and cling to each piece.
5. Serve. Transfer to a plate. Garnish with sesame seeds and scallions. Serve immediately over steamed rice or alongside tteokbokki.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 285 | Protein: 18g | Fat: 19g | Carbs: 9g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 780mg