RECIPE: Tofu Carpaccio

After my exit from The Chefs’ Line, the remaining contestants had to create a carpaccio dish. I wasn’t in the competition any longer, but I wanted to keep playing at home. This is my rather creative adaptation of carpaccio. Of course it doesn’t taste like raw meat, but it is, without doubt, full of flavour. You will need a scone cutter or round object to shape the tofu beef. Beetroot powder can be found in health food stores and pharmacists or can be substituted with beetroot juice.

TOFU BEEF CARPACCIO WITH VEGAN EGG YOLK

Serves 2 | 15 minutes + marinating

Tofu Beef

250g block extra firm tofu

2 teaspoons beetroot powder

few drops of liquid smoke

1 teaspoon ‘beef’ style stock powder

Egg Yolk Dressing

½ cup soy milk

½ tablespoon nutritional yeast flakes

½ teaspoon black salt (kala namak)

dash turmeric

cracked black pepper

¾ cup neutral vegetable oil, like rice bran

juice of ½ lemon

rocket leaves, lemon wedges, capers, olive oil, salt, cracked pepper and grissini to serve.

Tofu beef

Using a mandoline slicer or sharp knife, carefully slice the tofu block as thinly as possible into large pieces. Take a scone cutter or round object, and carefully cut rounds from the tofu slices. You want to create circle-shaped tofu.

Make the marinade by whisking together beetroot powder*, 3 tablespoons of water, liquid smoke and stock powder in a bowl. Add the tofu rounds and marinate for at least 20 minutes.

*If you can't find beetroot powder, you can use beetroot juice instead, fresh or from canned beetroot. Even a few drops of vegan food colouring!

Egg yolk

Pour soy milk, nutritional yeast, black salt, turmeric and pepper into a blender and blend to incorporate. With the blender still running, slowly pour the oil into the soy milk mixture and then squeeze in the lemon juice. This will emulsify into a thick sauce. If still too thin, slowly pour in extra oil and lemon juice.

Drain the tofu onto absorbent paper.

Arrange the tofu rounds onto a serving plate. Drizzle generously with the egg yolk sauce. Garnish with rocket leaves, capers, lemon wedges, grissini, a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkling of salt and pepper.

To assemble.

On a serving plate, arrange the drained tofu beef. Drizzle over the vegan egg yolk. Garnish with rocket leaves, extra lemon juice and olive oil and sprinkling of salt and pepper.

Enjoy as a starter or side dish or as a topping with your favourite crusty bread.