Miso-Sesame Baked Tofu

In this cookbook I have, there's this recipe on baked tofu that uses dark soy sauce, tamari, honey, ginger, garlic and toasted sesame oil as the marinade. Notice the little golden chunks of tofu below? Pretty, right?

Watermelon, Jalepeno, Mint and Tofu Salad

There are quite a few watermelon-jalepeno or watermelon-feta or watermelon-mint recipes out there. This one combines all of them into one. I used raw tofu seasoned with oregano salt instead of feta. Non-vegans can use feta or any other soft creamy cheese.

Personally, I prefer keeping the watermelon seeds, as well as scraping the watermelon off its green rind and using every last inch of watermelon because closer to the rind and the rind itself is where all the nutrients are!

Watermelon, Jalepeno, Mint and Tofu Salad

Ingredients

• 3-4 cups of watermelon, cubed (and deseeded, if you prefer it that way)
• 1 cup fresh mint leaves
• 1 inch knob of ginger, finely chopped/grated
• 1-2 jalepeno peppers, chopped
• 3/4 cup of silken tofu, the softer the better
• Teaspoon of oregano flavoured salt
• Dash of balsamic vinegar

To make:

• Break up your tofu into crumbs with your fingers. Season with the oregano salt.
• In another plate, combine the watermelon, jalepenos, ginger and mint. Leave this in the fridge for 3-4 hours to chill and for the flavors to infuse.
• When you want to eat the salad, add the tofu (or cheese of your choice) on top of the watermelon salad, and top off with a dash of balsamic vinegar.
  
  
  

What I Want Now: Sautéed Spinach With Silken Tofu

Evan from The Wannabe Chef made a sautéed spinach with silken tofu dish, that just looks so inviting and wholesome! Finally, some good use for my remaining tub of silken tofu. His secret ingredients are nutmeg and cinnamon.

Photo and recipe courtesy of The Wannabe Chef:

Vegan Pizza Margherita

David Rocco's Dolce Vita is a new find for me. I loved the episode on pizzas. I just wonder when I will find a guy who feeds me freshly made pizzas?!

So, when I saw there was fresh basil available at Nature's Basket, thats when I decided to buy a couple of ready-made pizza bread from there as well. I don't have a really good  oven - everything takes at least twice as long to bake as is prescribed in a recipe, despite the fact that the oven is at its highest setting. David Rocco baked his pizzas in a wood burning oven for 10 minutes. If you're lucky to have one, bake it for 10 minutes. Else, just go with your gut. I baked mine for approximately 45 minutes at 250 degrees celcius.

I've used silken tofu - the softest variety you can get. Mush it up with your fingers to get a cottage cheese like texture. The tofu  - or any manner of vegan cheese - isn't going to melt and go all gooey like cheese. No one said being vegan was without its sacrifices. :)

Vegan Pizza Margherita
Ingredients

• 1 tomato
• Handful of silken tofu
• 4-5 fresh basil leaves
• 1 pizza crust
• Tablespoon of olive oil
• Salt, per taste

To make:

• Pre-heat the oven for approximately 15-20 minutes so its nice and hot.
• Slice the tomato finely and lay over the pizza crust.
• Spread the tofu on top.
• Season with salt.
• Lay the basil leaves on top.
• Top off with olive oil.
• Bake until slightly brown on top.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Hoisin and Sesame Tofu Fry

Here's a really simple and quick to make tofu dish - You'll need hoisin sauce and some white sesame seeds.

Hoisin and Sesame Tofu Fry

Servings: 2 bite sized pieces

• 50 grams of extra firm tofu
• 2 tablespoons of sesame seeds
• 2 tablespoons of hoisin sauce
• Oil to fry

To make:
Cut the tofu about an inch thick.
Coat generously with the hoisin sauce. Let it marinate for an hour or so.

Dip the tofu in the sesame seeds.

Shallow fry or grill the tofu till nice and brown on the outside.

Cream of Beetroot Soup

It's probably no surprise to regular readers when I say I love beets! Here's a dead simple recipe with just three ingredients: beets, tofu and sage. I had it raw - but you can just as easily heat it up or even replace the tofu with cream.

Cream of Beetroot Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 large beetroot
• 4 sage leaves
• About 50-75 grams of silken tofu

To make:

• Chop up the beets and the sage roughly.
• Blitz the beetroot, sage, along with some water, in a blender till it its a puree. Set aside.
• In a clean blender, add the tofu cubes and blitz till its the consistency of cream or curd. Add some water if needed.
• In a bowl, combine the two. I added the two in layers - a tablespoon of beets and then a tablespoon of tofu cream.
• Serve chilled.

Spicy Tofu Pakoras

I love the Hairy Bikers. They're adorable, in that cuddly teddy bear way. We have our own Indian version of the hairy bikers, by way of Rocky and Mayur on Highway on my Plate. One guy plays good cop (vegetarian) and one plays bad cop (eats everything). However, the one dichotomy about India is that while vegetarian food is plentiful and easy to get; vegan is not. Everything's cooked in ghee (clarified butter) for that authentic old India taste, and the default meat substitute is paneer (Indian cottage cheese).

Speaking of paneer, the hairy bikers, while touring India, had made Palak Paneer (Spinach with Cottage Cheese). Indians normally just dunk chunks of paneer inside the spinach pot and let it simmer for a while. The hairy bikers, ingeniously, coated their paneer chunks in semolina and then fried the paneer to give it a crunchy coating and then added the paneer on top.

That sounded good to me. Only, I substituted the paneer for tofu. You do have to use a firm tofu, though. Mine said Firm on the carton, but I did find it a bit soft and I hate having to handle my ingredients with extreme care.

Tofu Pakoras

Servings: 6-8 bite sized pakoras

Ingredients

• 100-150 grams of firm silken tofu
• 3/4 cup besan (chickpea flour)
• 1 green chilli
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1/2 cup semolina
• Juice of half a lime
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

To make:

• Slice your tofu into square cubes, patting them dry.
• Make a batter using the chickpea flour, chilli (finely chopped), garam masala, and lime juice. You'll need about 1/2 cup of water to bind everything into a smooth liquid batter.
• Dunk your tofu cubes into the batter and let it marinate for 30 minutes or so.
• Heat oil in a pan.
• Dunk the marinated tofu into a plate of semolina, ensuring that the cubes have a decent amount of batter on them firstly, and then are completely coated in semolina.
• Fry till golden brown.
• Serve with more lashings of lime, and a mint or chilli chutney.

The Tofu Trials

Never been a big fan of soya - mainly because I haven't really given it a real shot. But when you're vegan, you have to rely on substitutes for eggs and milk. I bought a small packet of tofu today - half expecting to try a morsel, say "I gave it a shot. But i didnt like it, what can I do?" and toss the remainder in the trash. 

  

So, what I had for dinner tonite was scrambled tofu. It tasted quite like the texture of eggs that have had the hell scrambled out of them. Quite nice - and took all of five minutes to prepare - chopboard to my plate!

  To make: 

Ingredients: 

• About 100 grams of tofu, julienned, then cut again into tiny bits (alternately, just crumble it in with your fingers - thats what I will do next time!)
• 10-12 cherry tomatoes
• Quarter of an onion, chopped
• Half a teaspoon of chili powder (or add one whole chili)
• Half a teaspoon of turmeric powder
• A little bit of black mustard seeds
• A bundle of coriander, chopped (retain all the stalks)
• Teensy bit of vegetable oil
• Salt to taste

 Method: 

• Heat a wok till its blazing hot and keep all your ingredients chopped and ready by your side.
• Throw in the onions
• Then the chili and turmeric powder
• Then the whole mustard seeds
• Mix to a non-lumpy paste
• Then throw in the tofu. Mix on high speed for about 30 seconds.
• Then add the tomatoes (another 10 seconds on the gas)
• Finally add the coriander.
• Another 10 seconds and take it off the gas.

Bottom line: Tofu is a tasteless sponge. Its what you add to the tofu that makes or breaks a dish. I will definitely be buying tofu with each visit to the supermarket.