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Tofu scramble is one of those Western vegetarian dishes that may have started out as a fake meat mockery for something else, but became so canonized by hippie restaurants and cookbooks that it’s now a nostalgic dish in its own right. My favorite used to be at Boneshakers, a vegan biker cafe in Greenpoint, where it was served in the Sag sandwich or as a platter with fake meat sausages. It was an unfussy place with stickers on the walls and mismatched for-here mugs, and I would nurse a hangover with coffee and tempeh bacon and congratulate myself on eating something other than a bagel.
Central to the flavor of tofu scramble is nutritional yeast for its specific umami-bitterness, but beyond that anything goes. Turmeric is often added for color, but my version is too dark for that to matter, so it’s left out. Some mix of vegetables is a good idea, but onion and bell pepper feel like the minimum to me. This recipe is super savory and satisfied all my salty-girl friends (Leanne, Emily) but requires a secret ingredient that many Americans find offensive (you’ll see) — I think every vegetarian should have a jar in their pantry because it can be snuck into the base for so many recipes.
There are thousands of tofu scramble recipes out there online, but I’m going to go ahead and say that every one of them allots too little time for you to make a decent dish. Everyone says they’ve got a 15-minute recipe, but tofu can’t possibly crisp up during that time, so what you end up with a wet mushy pile on your plate that probably tastes too much like turmeric. My recipe is an annoyingly lengthy but mostly hands-off process, so as long as you get it started an hour before dinner (I know you can eat it for breakfast, but who starts breakfast an hour ahead?) you don’t have to do much except hang around the kitchen.
Since it’s a time investment, you can easily double the recipe and eat it throughout the week — cold bites straight from the fridge or wrapped in a heated-up tortilla. The reason I’m writing about it right now is because I made tofu scramble for our camping trip and it’s the best camping food — last week’s post was all about that.
Tofu Scramble
Yield: 2 quarts tofu scramble, 8 small servings or 4 pretty big ones
Ingredients
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