Texture in Cooking

I try to impress the effect of textures in food on my wife, who likes cooking, but generally faithfully follows recipes.

There are many ingredients that don't contribute much in the way of flavour to a dish, but by adding some texture to it, elevate it above the mundane.

Examples of this would be celery, which unless overcooked, adds texture (and in mildly flavoured dishes also some taste), water chestnut, which adds pretty much only texture, and any number of final garnishes that put in a bit of textural interest at the end - peanuts or cashews on top of a curry, for example.

Anyone have favourite texture contributors?

PS - lots of food add primarily flavour but incidentally also texture - fleur de sel on foie gras is one example. It is the ones that you wouldn't necessarily add for flavour that I'm interested in. I think you'd be hard put to say that tofu adds more than texture in a complex spicy oriental dish, for example.

Rice would be one of my top choices for textural elements. Obviously, it's also there for its caloric content, but the texture of rice in risotto, paella, biriyani, sushi or for service with a stir fry is absolutely critical. Pasta is another textural element in the same sense.

Mark Lipton

I think you'd be hard put to say that tofu adds more than texture in a complex spicy oriental dish, for example.

Well there are many kinds of tofu and so many kinds of texture it can offer. I particularly like soft tofu for its cooling melting pudding-esque sensation, which plays off well against the bright bold fiery heat.

For some reason my wife doesn't like tofu in any form. I like the firm kind included in cubes in an oriental melange, or fried, and the soft sort have all sorts of possibilities including blended up in place of yogurt or whipped cream as sauces.

I spent a lot of time in Hawaii in my youth and learned to like aburage, which is basically twice deep fried tofu pockets that you can put all sorts of things in - fish, pickles, you can even make peanut butter aburage pockets just like you would with pita bread.

Perhaps we can break down ingredients in cooking into those that add flavour, those than contribute mostly appearance, and those that contribute mainly to texture of a dish, and of course there is overlap with many foodstuffs contributing in more than one category. I expect that there are culinary deep thinkers (who have thought about it more than my 30 second contribution) that may categorize food a little differently.

Can't resist posting a video of how to make aburage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwgiEwuja2k

I like the firm kind included in cubes in an oriental melange.

That's definitely the smart/correct way to do it. But I can only handle firm tofu if it's really fresh/high quality, otherwise it tastes too cheesy to me. If we're only relying on Whole Foods/supermarket tofu, then I have a strong preference for soft because the taste is milder.

I remember coming back from living in Japan for a year and seeing the way tofu was sold here in the States and remarking that it looked so dead! I guess I've learned to live with it by now.