Couple experiments with making tofu replicate the texture and fishiness of salmon.
Marinade is full of seaweed(flavor) and beet juice(color).
The “skin” is made with rice paper and nori. Struggled to keep the skin stuck to the tofu, and varying cook methods achieved varying levels of crispness. But on the whole- great stuff. Great excuse to eat a block of tofu with pretty minimal prep.
The beet juice is a nice touch - it really does give it more of a fishy look. Even the texture in the cut portion looks more like fish than regular ol’ tofu to me, so that’s impressive too.
That said, even a million years ago when I ate meat I hated fish, so I probably don’t know what I’m talking about. Still, I’d definitely eat that. Great job!
Looks so good, asparagus is GOAT
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Please dump your thoughts on mimicking fishiness. I have a Google doc here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CC1wJx0RKmYM__-TTcg9FR-xcM5wHp-rxJpJlhRYAGw/edit?usp=drivesdk
with some of my abortive attempts to make something that tastes similar enough to smoked salmon to fill a niche. Seafood of all sorts remains my unrequited love I still can’t hit anything like.
I would love to compare notes!
Nice set of notes! Honestly, that looks pretty similar to what we got: -kelp granules -msg -soy sauce -beet juice
I wouldn’t say it tastes like salmon much. But between the kelp granules and the nori “skin”, it gives off enough fish vibe to distinguish it from plain ol’ pan fried tofu.
I wish you luck in your journey. I would love to have a bagel and lox again (minus the dead animal)
I forgot to submit my comment last time, this looks amazing and I’m going to try this tonight! It really looks pink from the beet juice
The color doesn’t penetrate very well, but on the outside edges it really does a lot to trick your mind. I think if you add slices to the tofu to simulate flaking of fish, you could spread the tofu out on a rounded surface and expose more of the insides to the marinade.
Interesting, I wonder if you vac sealed it with the beat juice if it would help penetrate the color further. I have a vac sealer I never use since going vegan 8 years ago.
I don’t know if a vac sealer would help, but I have no experience with one. I’ve seen a recipe that uses one to get marinade deep into a mushroom steak, but mushrooms are not the same as tofu!
Give it a try and report back!
