A lot of recipes – usually American – call for liquid smoke. Because they’re usually American recipes, this means liquid smoke isn’t something you’re going to find in your local Tesco. Amazon, of course, sells everything, so I bought a bottle from there and today I decided to use it in a marinade for some tofu.
While browsing the internet for inspiration, I came across a lot of recipes that used liquid smoke with tofu to try and replicate bacon. As all vegetarians will know, the vegetarian bacon you get in the shops is a laughable mockery of ‘real’ bacon but as I don’t miss bacon anyway, it doesn’t really matter to me. What I would like though, is to make tofu thin and smoky and crispy – now that does appeal.
My tofu didn’t turn out crispy – possibly because I cut it too thin and it didn’t stick to both sides of my George Foreman, or possibly because I didn’t leave it to grill for long enough, or possibly because I didn’t squeeze enough water out of the tofu to begin with or possibly because of some other reason. Still, it definitely was smoky – liquid smoke isn’t lying about the ‘smoke’ bit – and it went beautifully with cream cheese and salad in a bagel.
I can’t really give exact quantities for the marinade as I just kind of slopped a bit in here, poured a bit in there, and sprinkled a bit in wherever. But I’ll give a rough estimate. You don’t actually need me to tell you what extras to add to your bagel, but I’ve listed what I had.
Smoky Tofu and Cream Cheese Bagel (serves 1)
3 thin slices of tofu, pressed to squeeze out the excess water
1 bagel
Cream cheese
Lettuce
Tomato
Cucumber
Mayonnaise
For the marinade
1 tbsp sriracha
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp liquid smoke
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
- Mix all the marinade ingredients together in a tupperware dish and dredge the tofu slices in it. Cover and leave for a few hours.
- Grill the marinated tofu slices and while you’re doing this, toast the bagel and pile on your other fillings and top with the tofu when it’s ready.