Tofu Salad
From: Land of Oz
It's one of those that varies with the maker. The base recipe is in the Moosewood cookbook as Tofu Salad. It contains 4 tablespoons oil, but you can halve it, or double everything but the oil and it still turns out good! It's one of those things you can assemble at the beginning of the week in a tightly covered container and use whenever. It tastes better the second day and keeps getting better.
The Marinade:
4 tbl chinese sesame oil (the stronger the flavor, the less you need)
5 tbl rice or cider vinegar (or wine, or garlic vinegar or anything similar)
1 tbl sugar
3 tbl soy sauce (once I used worchester when I was out of soy sauce)
3 cloves garlic, minced (minimum of 3!)
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1 tsp minced fresh ginger (optional) (I leave this out)
1 to 2 tbl dry sherry or rice wine (optional)
1 to 1.5 lb of very firm tofu, drained and cubed
8-10 medium mushrooms, sliced
1 carrot, grated or cut into small matchsticks
1 sweet pepper, minced
Finely shredded cabbage (1-2 lb minimum) (red is lovely!)
2 or more minced green onions (or other onion, equal amount)
Handful of bean sprouts (I don't usually have this)
Optional ingredients:
1/2 cup of peanuts OR other nuts (I've used raw cashews or walnuts)
minced fresh cilantro (I leave this out)
diced fresh ripe tomato (will try this when home grown are available)
1 to 2 tbl sesame seeds
whisk the marinade ingredients together. Marinate the tofu cubes while you prepare the other ingredients. Then stir all together and let sit at room temp for at least two hours. Serve cold or room temp.
You can add anything you like or have on hand, or replace or remove any vegetable or ingredient you simply can't stand. (like me with ginger) If you simply can't stand sesame oil, you'd probably better find another recipe--because that flavor/smell really makes the salad! It makes a lot and the amount of oil you get with each serving is very low!
bon appetite
Denise