SMOKY DILL TOFU SPREAD

SMOKY DILL TOFU SPREAD

With onion and green pepper. Flavored with paprika, garlic, dill and Jalapeno mustard. Served on Pumpernickel rolls!

Makes 2-3/4 cups spread

14 oz. pkg. extra firm, water packed tofu, rinsed and twisted/squeezed in tofu cloth to extract as much water as possible

2 t. liquid smoke

1 t. salt

3 T. dill pickle relish

2 t. raw sugar

½ t. garlic powder

½ t. dill weed

½ t. mild paprika

1 very sm. yellow onion, peeled and finely diced

lots of freshly ground black pepper

¼ c. Sharon’s Tofu Butter, no more than that

2 T. Jalapeno mustard

Place squeezed tofu in extra large bowl with salt and liquid smoke. Mash with potato masher till pulpy, being sure to distribute the liquid smoke evenly throughout. You want to flavor the tofu with the smoke. The tofu will look very dry, like a very dry cottage cheese curd.

Add dill relish, stir to evenly disperse.

Add sugar, garlic, dill weed, paprika, and stir again.

Add onion, ground black pepper, tofu butter and mustard. Stir to thoroughly incorporate.

Add more black pepper and salt to taste.

Spread on fresh pumpernickel rolls spread with tofu butter and serve.

Notes: Easy and quick. Use a light pumpernickel roll. The grocery near us makes them every now and then, and when fresh baked, they’re delicious with this spread.

RE: Water-packed tofu: I don’t know if tofu makers are reformulating their recipes like the veggie meat people are doing, in order to save on production costs, but I’ve noticed that with some brands of tofu, what use to be called extra firm is a whole lot softer than it once was just a few months ago.

If the store you shop at carries more than one brand, press the cellophane package into the tofu, to test for firmness, like you would a fruit, comparing brands before you buy it.

With this recipe we want very firm, that when squeezed to extract the water, will produce a dry curd. With one brand recently, even after extracting the water, it was way too mushy, which led me at the time to think that the factory had packed soft tofu in an extra firm package – it’s not out of the realm of possibility if, for instance, they had too much soft that wasn’t selling, so rather than dump it, packaged it in an extra firm package.