Now these burgers are not about the patty, since the “patty” is actually just a slice of fried tofu, and I guess that in the US these might most likely be called sandwiches instead of burgers. But the main thing that’s going on here is the beet-sauerkraut relish, with its sweet-tangy taste that goes so very well with the rye bread, and its beety texture that is quite lovely with the fried tofu – especially when everything is drenched in creamy tahini sauce. Simple, quick, and tasty, just the way we prefer our dinners to be right now.

This recipe makes enough for 4 burgers, with some extra beet relish and tahini sauce left over. The relish is mighty tasty as a side dish as well, and we often serve this sauce with cooked grains like quinoa or barley. We also filled our burgers with pea sprouts and sliced yellow bell pepper, and enjoyed them with a side of carrot sticks.

The Tofu:

• 300 grams tofu
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke
• canola oil for frying
• black pepper to taste

Heikki first cut the tofu in 4 slices, pressed them for a bit with some cheesecloth, and then fried them in canola oil until slightly brown on both sides. Then he drizzled the liquid smoke and the soy sauce in the pan and turned the slices over a few times to make sure they got an even coating, and crackled plenty of black pepper over the tofu when it was ready.

The Beet Relish:

• 2 large beets, julienned (or even grated)
• 1 and 1/2 dl sauerkraut (about 100 grams)
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 1/2 tablespoon canola oil
• salt and black pepper to taste
• (a sqeeze of lemon juice)

I heated the oil in a frying pan and fried the onion until slightly browned. Then I added the beets and the sauerkraut in the pan, and fried for about 5 minutes, until the beet started to soften. Now I added the salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon juice, covered the pan, and let it stew until everything else was ready to serve (it took about 10 minutes).

Tahini Sauce:

• 3 tablespoons tahini
• 1 dl nutritional yeast
• 3/4 dl water
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• juice of 1/2 lemon

Heikki just dumped all the ingredients in our mini food processor and mixed until thoroughly combined and creamy. The thickness of this sauce can be easily adjusted by cutting the amount of water – this makes quite a runny sauce.

To assemble, we buttered out two toasted rye bread slices with a bit of vegan margarine, slathered the bread slices with tahini sauce, then added a pile of the beet relish on the bottom slice. That got drizzled with some more sauce, then covered by a slice of tofu and a bunch of veggies, and another drizzle of the sauce.

This makes enough tofu for 4, so we have plenty of leftovers – they are very munchable and a nice addition to many meals.

The Herbed Tofu (serves 4):

• 500 g tofu
• 2 and 1/2 tablespoons tamari soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon each: smoked paprika, thyme, sage, tarragon
• 1 teaspoon brown rice vinegar
• freshly ground black pepper
• 3 cloves garlic, pressed
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

I first pressed the tofu – sliced it, wrapped in cheesecloth, placed a cutting board and a pile of cookbooks over it, and let sit for 15 minutes. Then I cut it into small-ish cubes (about the size of the tip of my thumb), heated the oil in a frying pan on medium high heat, and fried the tofu cubes until slightly browned on most sides. This takes about 10 minutes, and while the tofu was frying, I had plenty of time to mix together the seasonings (tamari through garlic).

When the tofu was nice and golden brown, I poured the seasoning mixture in the pan, and stirred it to coat all the tofu cubes. I kept on stirring until the liquid was absorbed and started to get brown, and removed the pan from heat. I let the tofu come to room temperature before adding it to the salad base.

The Salad Base (serves 2):

• 1 small head of new cabbage, thinly sliced
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced
• a bunch of arugula, chopped
• 6 sundried tomatoes, chopped
• a squeeze of fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1-2 tablespoons gomasio (Japanese sesame salt), or salt to taste
• 1 teaspoon agave syrup
• plenty of black pepper
• fresh basil

I just tossed everything together in a large bowl, added about half of the tofu, and sprinkled with some fresh basil.

This batch serves 2 people as a snack or a starter – I have a feeling that next time we make these I will be doubling the recipe. The mint flavor came out quite delicate despite the seemingly large amount of mint leaves in the recipe, possibly because our mint was a little bit on the dry side.

The Ingredients:

• 200 g firm tofu, not pressed
• 1 dl cashew nuts
• 1 dl mint leaves, lightly packed
• 2 cloves garlic
• a 5 cm piece of a lemon grass stalk
• 1 red Thai chili, de-seeded
• 1 to 2 tablespoons water, as needed
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

I placed half of the tofu, cashew nuts, mint leaves, garlic, lemon grass, the chili, and a splash of water in our mini food processor, and started blending into a coarse paste. The paste didn’t end up completely smooth, just so that there were no larger pieces of lemon grass or chili – I think this could easily be achieved with an immersion blender as well.

Now I crumbled the rest of the tofu, and added that to the spicy paste. I seasoned the dough with salt, and it was ready to be fried.

I heated a tin layer of canola oil in a frying pan, formed the dough into 10 balls, and flattened them lightly. I actually battered two of the croquettes with a gram flour and water mixture (the one that is on the right side of the picture being one of those), but I think the un-battered ones were slightly nicer.

I fried the croquets on high to medium high heat until browned on both sides, and then drained them on kitchen towel. I served these right away with an easy dipping sauce made with lime juice, soy sauce, and a pinch of sugar.

Breading with soy yoghurt was very easy and quite fool proof, and resulted in a lovely crispy topping with a hint of yoghurty sourness. The baked version was definitely lighter, and baking also resulted in a more developed, round flavor.

The Marinade:

• 1 dl red wine
• 1/2 dl soy sauce
• 5 cloves garlic, pressed
• 2 teaspoons agave syrup
• 1 teaspoon pink peppercorns, ground
• 1 teaspoon green peppercorns, ground
• 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, ground

I first pressed my 500 gram block of tofu for one hour – sliced it 1 cm thick, wrapped in cheesecloth, arranged as a uniformly thick layer, and placed a cutting board and a pile of plates on top. Then I just mixed all the marinade ingredients and placed in an airtight container along with the tofu. I flipped the tofu slices and shook the container every once in a while to ensure even absorption of the marinade.

As we found out, the marinating time can be anything between 2 hours and two days.

The Breading for Fried Tofu:

• 1 dl dry bread crumbs
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 3/4 dl plain soy yoghurt
• a pinch of salt and a pinch of sugar

I mixed the bread crumbs and the salt and pepper on one plate and the soy yoghurt and the salt and sugar on another. Then I patted the marinated tofu slices dry with some kitchen towels and dipped them first in the yoghurt dish, then rolled them carefully in the bread crumbs.

Then Heikki shallow fried the tofu slices in canola oil until nicely browned on both sides.

We enjoyed our breaded tofu with lemon wedges and a side of stir-fried morning glory – so good!

Most tandoori sauces seem to have red food coloring, and that’s not something I wanted to include in this recipe. I added a chopped beet to get a little bit of that red tandoori color, but my endeavor wasn’t a complete success: the result was unevenly colored, partly bright fuchsia, partly yellowish. Now that I think of it, I could have added the beets in when I was pre-cooking the rice, and the color would’ve most likely come out prettier! Another option would’ve been to add some beet juice in the sauce, so that the tofu would’ve had a pink color as well.

This recipe makes a lot of food, enough for about 4 hungry or 6 not quite as hungry eaters. I like to make a larger batch of food once I heat up the oven, so there’s leftovers for the days to come.

The Tandoori Sauce (adapted from this recipe):

• 5 garlic cloves
• 5 cm peeled ginger
• 3 shallots (or 1 regular onion)
• 1 small red chili with seeds
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 tablespoons muscovado sugar
• 1 and 1/2 dl plain soy yogurt
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons paprika powder
• 1 teaspoon each: ground cumin and turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon each: cinnamon and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon each: freshly grated nutmeg, ground cardamom, and ground clove

Also Used:

• 500 g firm tofu, pressed and cubed
• 2 potatoes, scrubbed and cubed
• 1 beet, peeled and finely cubed
• 4 dl brown basmati rice
• 1 bay leaf
• water to cook rice in
• 4 dl vegetable stock

Three and a half hours before we planned to have dinner we started the preparations. I blended all the tandoori sauce ingredients with our immersion blender until smooth. Heikki pressed and cubed the tofu, and I mixed it with the sauce and put it in the fridge to marinate for two hours (overnight would be even better). I rinsed the rice at this point and let it soak in fresh water for two hours as well.

An hour and a half before dinner time I set the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Then I rinsed the rice, cooked it in ample water with the bay leaf for about 20 minutes, and drained it.  While the rice was cooking, I cubed the potatoes and the beet. When everything was prepped, I just mixed it all together in a large baking dish – tofu with the tandoori sauce, pre-cooked rice, potatoes, beets, and the veggie stock. Now, I covered the dish with a lid, and baked it for one hour.

Brown rice takes a long time to cook, but it results in a much more satisfying dish than white arborio rice commonly used for risotto. Brown rice isn’t as starchy as arborio rice at first, but it will get creamy after about an hour’s cooking. I’ve heard about brown arborio rice as well, but I don’t think it’s available in Helsinki. So, I didn’t feel like a heretic when I poured most of the cooking broth in the pan right at the beginning and covered the pan – I just let the brown rice reach the starchy stage this way, and once it was almost done, I started stirring in order to produce a nice and creamy risotto.

My Risotto Ingredients (serves 2-3):

• 2 and 1/2 dl short grain brown rice (soaked for 2 hours)
• 2 medium beets, peeled and chopped
• 1 small parsley root, scrubbed and chopped
• 3 spring onions, sliced
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 dl flat leaf parsley (lightly packed), chopped

The Cooking Broth:

• 5 dl mild vegetable stock
• 1/2 dl mirin (or white wine)
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• (additional water/stock to add later)

The Lemony Tofu:

• 200 g firm tofu
• juice of 1 small lemon
• 1 large clove of garlic
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar

First, I placed the rice in a small bowl and covered it with water, and let it soak for about 2 hours. Then I mashed the tofu with a fork and combined it with the lemon juice, garlic, sugar and salt. I placed it in the fridge to marinate while I was cooking the risotto.

Then I made the cooking broth by combining the hot veggie stock with mirin and soy sauce.

I heated the olive oil in a frying pan and fried the spring onions until soft, then added the root parsley and the beet cubes and fried for a few more minutes. I rinseed the rice and fried it for a few minutes as well, and then started adding the liquid to the pan.

Pretty soon I realized that I’d have to hang around the stove for a very long time if I was to make the risotto correctly, and it was lunch time after all. So I decided to make things easier and added all the broth in the pan at once, lowered the heat to a light simmer, covered the pan, and set the kitchen alarm to 30 minutes.

After the first half an hour had elapsed I checked the risotto every now and then, stirring each time, until it started to thicken. I needed to add some more water toward the end of the cooking, maybe 3-4 dl altogether – it all depends on how runny you want your risotto. During the last 15 minutes I started stirring the risotto continuously while adding a little bit of liquid to get the consistency I wanted, and it was ready after about an hour and a half of total cooking time.

When the rice was soft and creamy, I stirred in about two thirds of the lemony tofu and the chopped parsley, and saved the rest for garnishing purposes. I also crackled some black pepper over my lunch portion.

Here’s my scrubbed parsley root, alongside some of its leaves.

We had the leftovers for lunch on the next day, and the flavors had blended a little more than I’d have liked. So in case of leftovers I recommend storing the lemony tofu and the risotto in separate containers, and only combining them right before serving!

The limes in Portugal were actually considerably sweeter than the ones we have around here – they are picked more ripe I suppose – which made me realize how challenging it can be to share recipes internationally. So, in this recipe, you might only need half the amount of agave if you live where the lime trees grow!

These patties were nice with mashed potatoes, and especially tasty squeezed between two slices of rye bread like a “fishy” veggie burger. We enjoyed our burgers with some garlic yogurt sauce, fresh dill, and pickled cucumbers – yum!

The Patties:

• 500 g firm tofu
• 1 dl chopped green onions
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons tamari (or regular soy) sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• grated zest of 1 lime
• 1 tablespoon agave syrup
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 teaspoon veggie broth powder (or less than 1 tsp salt)
• 1 teaspoon crushed dried chilies
• 3/4 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika powder
• 1 dl gram (chick pea flour)
• some more oil for brushing

First, I set the oven to 200 degrees Celsius, and covered a baking sheet with some parchment paper.

I didn’t press the tofu, since the burger dough needs moisture anyway. I just took the block of tofu out of the package and rinsed it, placed in a large mixing bowl, and then squeezed it with my hands until it was all mushy. Now I added the rest of the ingredients in the bowl and mixed the dough with a fork until everything was combined. At this point, I checked the taste to see if the balance of salty and sweet and acidic was right, and it was.

Now, I formed 12 patties out of the dough, each about the width of the palm of my hand, and about 2 centimeters thick. I placed the patties on the baking sheet I’d covered with parchment paper, brushed them with some canola oil on both sides, and then placed the baking sheet in the middle rack of our oven. I baked the patties for 10 minutes, then flipped them with a spatula, baked them for 15 minutes, flipped again, and baked for another 5 minutes until they’d browned nicely on both sides.

This recipe makes a pretty nice, smooth ice cream, and it wasn’t as much work as I thought it would be. Blueberries and lime are a match made in heaven, and matcha powder adds a nice green tea flavor in the mix – I like to make a smoothie with these three ingredients as well.

Here’s what I used:

• 350 g firm silken tofu (Mori-Nu)
• 200 g frozen blueberries
• about 2 dl confectioner’s sugar (depending on the sweetness of the blueberries)
• 3 and 1/2 teaspoons matcha green tea powder
• juice and zest of 1 lime
• 2 dl oat cream (or other vegan cream)

Making the ice cream takes about 5 hours (in our tiny freezer compartment), and it’s best eaten on the day of making. This recipe fills one 750 ml (7,5 dl) container.

First, I reserved 1 dl of the blueberries for serving, and placed the rest in a mixing bowl. Then I added all the other ingredients: lime juice and zest, tofu, oat cream, sugar, and matcha powder. I blended everything with our immersion blender until completely smooth, poured the mixture in the container, and popped it in the freezer.

Now, I set our kitchen timer at 55 minutes (it can only be set to 1 hour or less), and when the alarm went off, I hurried into the kitchen to blend the ice cream. I moved it in a large mixing bowl, blended with our immersion blender, ladled right back in the container, and placed it in the freezer again.

Then I repeated the above step two more times, until 3 hours had elapsed. The fourth time I only let the ice cream freeze for 35 minutes, then stirred briskly with a fork to break the texture once again, and placed it in the freezer for about an hour more, until it was time for dessert.

If frozen overnight, this ice cream becomes very solid, and needs to thaw for about an hour in the fridge before it’s scoopable.

The recipe is very easy and quick to make, but the flavor is at its best after a night in the fridge. If refrigerated and stored in an airtight container, this should keep for about one week.

Here’s what I used:

• 300 g firm tofu
• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke
• 1 teaspoon smooth peanut butter
• 1/2 dl canola oil
• 1/2 dl water
• 2 teaspoons agave syrup
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons light soy sauce
• 12 fresh sage leaves
• juice of 1/2 lemon

I just blended everything except for the lemon juice and salt in our mini food processor until smooth. Now, I added the salt and the lemon juice a little by little, until the balance was right. Then I refrigerated the spread overnight – the flavors developed and the texture firmed up quite nicely.

As a side we had oven-baked potato wedges and soy yogurt sauce seasoned with garlic and chives.

Marinade for 250g firm tofu (serves 2):

• 1 teaspoon caraway seeds, ground
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 dl white wine
• ½ teaspoon black pepper, ground
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

We just pressed the tofu, cut it into slices, dried the slices with a kitchen towel and put them in a plastic container. Then we mixed all the marinade ingredients, poured them over of the tofu, closed the lid of the container, shook it until the marinade was spread evenly, and put the tofu in the fridge overnight.

Next day we heated the oven to 200 degrees Celcius, spread the tofu slices in a single layer in a baking pan, poured the rest of the marinade over them, and baked them together with the potato wedges (see below) until the marinade was absorbed. In our oven this took 30 minutes.

Spicy Crispy Potato Wedges (serves 4):

• 1 kg potatoes, scrubbed and cut in 6 wedges each
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika
• 1 teaspoon paprika powder
• 1 teaspoon red chili flakes
• 3/4 dl dry bread crumbs

Anni first mixed the breadcrumbs with the spices in a big bowl, and then added the potato wedges and the canola oil. Now, she stirred the potatoes until fairly covered with the breadcrumbs, and placed them on a baking sheet covered with baking parchment, the skin side of each wedge facing down. Now, there was some breadcrumbs left in the bowl, which she pressed on the wedges.

Now, we baked the potato wedges in 200 degrees Celcius on the uppermost rack of our oven for 30 minutes, while the tofu stayed on the lower rack of the oven and was cooked in the exact same time.