Here’s what we had:

• 8-9 medium potatoes
• 1 carrot
• 1 dl coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon vegetable margarine
• 1 teaspoon salt
• pinch of white pepper

The process was as usual; peeled and sliced the potatoes and the carrot, cooked until soft, mashed with a potato masher, added coconut milk, margarine, and seasonings, and beat with a whisk until fluffy.

This is what we used:

Mashed potatoes:

• 10 potatoes

• some vegetable margarine

• 3-4 dl plain soy milk

• salt, white pepper

For the tofu:

• 500 g firm tofu

• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke (bought at Behnford’s in Helsinki)

• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Also needed:

• 1 red bell pepper

• a bunch of spring onions

Sauce:

• 2 dl oat cream

• 1 dl plain soy milk

• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke

• 2 teaspoons dried dill

• 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh parsley

• salt and white pepper to taste

First, I put the oven on 225 degrees celsius. I peeled and sliced the potatoes, and cooked them until soft. While I was preparing the tofu, Heikki mashed the potatoes with margarine and soy milk, and seasoned them with salt and white pepper.

I sliced the tofu less than 1 cm thick, wrapped the slices in kitchen roll, and pressed gently to remove excess liquid. Then I mixed the lemon juice with the liquid smoke, and brushed this on both sides of the tofu slices. Finally, I sprinkled the slices with some salt and some freshly ground black pepper, and let them marinate for a while.

Then I cubed the red bell pepper and sliced the spring onions, and sautéed them in a spoonful of olive oil until a little softened. I removed the veggies, and prepared the sauce in the same pan.

For the sauce, I heated the oat cream and soy milk until they started to bubble, added lemon, dried dill, and liquid smoke, and let this cook on low heat for a few minutes. (We have an electric stove, so I actually turned it off at this point.) Then I removed the sauce from heat and added the rest of the seasonings.

Now, I greased a round baking dish with some vegetable margarine, and Heikki smoothed the mashed potatoes in the dish. The potato should cover the sides of the dish a little like a pie crust. Then we placed the tofu slices on top of the potato, spread the spring onions and bell pepper cubes on top of the tofu, and poured the sauce on top of it all. Then we put the dish in the oven for half an hour, until the potatoes had gotten a little brown and the sauce had thickened.

This recipe makes enough for four people, or you can do as we did and have it for both lunch and dinner, in which case there’s just enough for two!

There’s some fresh arugula and fried tofu and yogurt sauce on the plate with the mash. The tofu was marinated for an hour or so in Dijon mustard, some lime juice, pinch of sugar, freshly ground black pepper, and garlic, and then fried in canola oil. There was about 250 grams of regular firm tofu and two tablespoons of mustard.

For such a short marinating time, it is wise to blot the tofu as well as possible. Heikki sliced the tofu cake in about 2 cm thick slices, then wrapped paper towels around them, and pressed the pile with his hands against the table so that as much moisture came out as possible, making it easier for the spices to absorb.

Yogurt sauce is something we have often, this time it was plain soy yogurt with garlic, dried dill, a pinch of salt and a pinch of sugar, and some black pepper.

I think there were about 8 medium-sized potatoes and 4 smallish beets in the mash. The trick is to cook potatoes and beets separately, since beets are denser in texture and do not mash very easily. We sliced the beets quite finely, cooked until tender in just enough water to cover, and then pureed them and the cooking liquid with a hand held mixer. We combined the cooked, cubed potatoes and the beet puree with a few tablespoons of vegetable margarine and some salt, and mashed this with a potato masher. The taste is sweet and salty at the same time, and surprisingly the taste of beets didn’t overpower the potatoes.