#scrambled tofu

Wombat Cafe / Mornington, Victoria, Australia

This is something I used to hate as a baby-vegan. Like with a passion. It was basically heated up tofu mashed together and I didn't realize until I tried making it myself with newer recipes that the regular restaurants I tried just didn't know how to handle tofu. And now I LOVE it! Like can demonlish a whole block in a day and want more.

So...this is how you make DELICIOUS tofu scramble.

Get the medium/firm tofu. The ones that come in a little white tub with liquid around it is fine. I don't mess around with any pre-freeze or weigh it down with paper towels and books...it's a waste of time and paper towels. Cut that bad boy into little cubes and squeeze it! Like with your hand. Just hold it over the sink and think about someone you hate and pretend like you're strangling them. Get as much of the water out as you can and it doesn't matter what it looks like....it's going to get mashed up anyway.

Heat up some oil in a pan and toss the weird mash in.

I immediately add a good helping of nutritional yeast. This is a necessary thing, and I find it works better if I add it early so it has time to cook down. I'm not a fan of the smell of it raw, but after it's cooked down into the tofu? Ugh, delicious. I also add some garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper and salt. Tofu soaked up a lot of salt and I find I end up adding more most of the time. If you have that special black salt stuff that tastes eggy that's a bonus, but I usually stick to regular.

Let it cook and keep tossing it. Break up any pieces of tofu that survives the strangling and add more oil if it gets too dry.

I like to add some vegan mayo at the end, but everyone might not like. It gives it more of an egg-salad texture that I prefer.

Tofu scramble

Scrambled tofu is one of those vegan brunch dishes which is so rarely done right. I've had it as part of a vegan fry up in cafés and it's been this sad, dry, plain thing, seasoned with way too much turmeric to make it egg yellow and nothing else. Which is a shame, because I LOVE tofu scramble. When I make it I season it with fresh herbs and whole spices, and load it up with veggies. Like, it doesn't have to look like eggs! It's way more important that it tastes good!

You can put basically any veg in this, the basic thing is to chop them fine enough that they cook through in the frying pan. I really love courgettes in scrambled tofu, but I used our last courgettes in yesterday's Keralan jungle curry (mm, I'm looking forward to eating some of those leftovers for dinner later). This would be great with any leftover veggies like potato, squash, Brussels sprouts, bubble and squeak style. But my mainstays for tofu scramble are mushrooms, courgette, some kind of leafy green, and tomatoes and peppers if you can eat nightshades.

Here's how I made it this morning:

Ingredients

1 block silken tofu

1 white onion, chopped small

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 chestnut mushrooms, chopped small

1 carrot, chopped small

1 tomato, chopped small

Handful of rainbow chard, chopped small

Fresh thyme and rosemary from the garden

Black peppercorns and coriander seed, freshly ground

Vegan boullion powder

Method

Fry the onion, garlic, mushrooms and carrot in olive oil. Once they're cooked, stir in the tofu and mix it well together. Add the herbs, spices, and boullion powder to season.

I fried up the tomatoes separately and added them to my plate at the end, since my partner can't eat them. Yum, tomatoes.