Well, you can poach in oil -- you just have to keep the temperature fairly low, which is not so difficult as you might think. But I'd be very wary about doing this with tofu, because it will tend to act like a sponge and you'll get a lovely pale-yellow cube of fat.
One possibility would be to use a very creamy, soft, water-filled tofu -- more the Japanese than the Chinese style here -- and poach it without any significant draining or pressing.
But I'm not at all sure what sort of result you're looking for. Poaching in oil is an unusual technique, and when I've seen it done there is always a very clear reason for it. For example, if you poach a tough old hen or cock in oil, keeping the oil at around 225-250* F, a lot of the tough cartilage turns very soft, the chicken doesn't lose significant juice, and you get lots of flavor and a very eat-able bird. But the point here is that if you fried or baked or roasted such a bird, it would be tough and stringy, so you're using oil-poaching to produce a specific result.
So... why do you want to do this?  |