Hello, and thanks for letting me back in you’re inbox! I hope this email doesn’t feel like the daily spam I get from Sweetgreen because I ordered a salad once. Before I get to the recipe, I want to remind you all of the tart, sweet, spicy probiotic drinking vinegar Ham and I developed with Lindera Farms: Golden Elixir Vinegar! It’s been a year in the making, motivated by my obsession with fancy nonalcoholic bubbly bevs.
What’s Drinking Vinegar?
I’m not talking about taking a shot of apple cider vinegar or trying to convince yourself that balsamic and seltzer tastes like a cola, but rather a sweet vinegar-based syrup, also called a shrub, that’s diluted with seltzer or used in a cocktail. Even though these kinds of drinks are suddenly taking over the shelves at my local bodega, shrubs and drinking vinegars go way back and are found all over the globe. The term shrub is derived from the Arabic word “sharbah” which means drink.
What inspired the Golden Elixir Vinegar was a desire to combine my favorite functional beverages—an unpasteurized probiotic-packed drinking vinegar with traditional ayurvedic haldi doodh. And there are no better people to partner with than the folks at Lindera Farms. They are all in, foraging for ingredients themselves and sourcing from local, sustainable farms. The ingredients are juiced in small batches, fermented into wines, then aged into vinegar (for real, could not be more garden to glass).
Get Golden!
For our drinking vinegar, the team at Lindera brewed and blended six vinegars—apple, ginger, heirloom pepper, lemongrass, persimmon, and turmeric. It’s then sweetened with honey syrup that was steeped with freshly dug turmeric and spices (double turmeric, baby!). We tasted and tweaked countless batches until hitting just the right balance of acid, sweetness, spice, and heat.
The final vinegar is, of course, freaking fantastic splashed into seltzer, but surprised us by also being so perfect for cooking with. The first thing we made was a vinaigrette, and all it takes is good olive oil, salt, and pepper for a complex and nuanced dressing. Get the recipe here (plus more for wings, a float, and fruit salad), and get a bottle of vinegar here!
Salad But Make It Lunchables
Speaking of Sweetgreen, I am not a bowl or salad-for-dinner kind of person (sorry, Sweetgreen). Okay, sometimes I’ll go all out and roast eggplant, crisp chickpeas, and blister halloumi, all in the name of a salad. But even with all that going on, I get bored eating a big bowl of something. It’s probably because I grew up eating mostly Bangladeshi food (where a meal’s not complete without rice, lentils, salad, and an assortment of bhajis and bhunas) and Lunchables.
At their core, both those elaborate Bangladeshi meals and Lunchable brought the same kind of joy to the table, the ability to mix and match to make countless tasty bites. I can take all day eating a meal like that. Maybe I’ll make a bite of rice and chicken korma followed by a palate cleanser of rice and dal with bitter melon bhaji. Or stack cracker-cheese-turkey after stacking cracker-cheese-cracker. It’s wild. And it’s still how I want to eat every meal, so instead of salads, I like lettuce wraps or big crudite platters that let me build each bite to my specifications.
This tofu lettuce wrap with a side of tahini for dipping situation is one of my go-to’s as the weather heats up. It’s light and fresh with all those crunchy raw veggies, but still hearty and satisfying thanks to the rich tahini and the deep flavors of soy and maple. Plus, this is a great way to get super flavorful tofu without any advanced pressing or marinating required. You only need a well-seasoned cast iron skillet (preferably) or a heavy-bottomed nonstick skillet.
Take Your Tofu To Flavortown (no Guy Fieri flame shirt required!)
Okay, even if you don’t want to make this recipe, take this technique with you (stick it in a bowl, if you must). You can add whatever aromatics you’d like and use these tofu crumbles in a taco, casserole, stir fry, or pasta—anywhere you’d use ground meat.
Give your tofu a squeeze: Drain firm or extra firm tofu, break it into crumbles, and place in a clean kitchen towel. Then gather the towel up and use it to wring some moisture out of the tofu. You definitely won’t get it all, the tofu will look like ricotta at this point, but it’ll give you a heads up on browning.
Heat up a heavy-bottomed, nonstick-ish skillet with a generous amount of fat: I’ve found that a well-seasoned cast iron is the best at getting the tofu evenly browned, but it’s got to be very well seasoned to prevent sticking. If all you’ve got is nonstick, that’s okay, too. The tofu may not brown as deeply. Definitely don’t attempt in a stainless steel skillet.
Add the tofu and walk away: Okay, not literally. Arrange the tofu in an even layer and leave it to do its thing. It’ll initially hiss and spurt at you, but as the liquid evaporates and browning begins, the sputtering will subside, and you’re kitchen will smell toasty. If the tofu sticks, that’s a sign that enough moisture hasn’t evaporated yet, and it’s still pale and mushy. If the edges look dangerously dark, turn down the heat, but don’t get in there and toss until the tofu releases from the skillet and is deeply browned.
Season it up: This is a great time to sprinkle aromatics or spices, like chopped onions, ginger, and cumin, right on top. As it cooks, the steam from the tofu will soften the aromatics, which in turn deeply flavor the tofu.
Toss and break up the tofu, cooking it a bit more for extra browning, then finish it up with any final seasonings or tender chopped herbs. This is the time to add soy, miso, honey, cilantro—the final hits of flavor that only need a little contact with heat.
RECIPE NOTES:
SERVING SIZES: The tofu package claims that one 14-ounce block is 4.5 servings. That’s definitely not true in our house (Ham and I regularly take down a block between us). If you want to double the recipe, be sure to cook the tofu in batches, or it won’t properly crisp and brown. Or stretch this meal and serve it with a pot of steamed rice.
CASHEWS: Even if you’re cashews are already toasted and salted, giving them another hit of brown in the skillet won’t hurt. Just keep an eye on them, as they’ll probably be ready in much less time. PS: Works great with any nut or seed. My favorites in this are cashews, Marcona almonds, peanuts, and sesame seeds.
MAPLE SYRUP: I went with maple syrup in this recipe to keep things vegan, but honey works too. Honey tastes slightly sweeter than maple, so add 1 tablespoon, then taste and add more if needed.
Maple-Ginger Tofu Lettuce Wraps
serves 2 to 3 | active time: 45 minutes | total time: 45 minutes
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Hot Dish with Sohla to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.