A Sincere Attempt at Tofu “Chorizo”

I had some major doubts about Mark Bittman’s “Chorizo” tacos, as they are made of tofu. I like Bittman a lot and I like tofu but I really love Mexican food, so this was a bit hard for me to embrace. I do try and keep an open mind and this was my attempt at his “Chorizo” tacos.

I’m not going to repeat the recipe as it’s here on Bittman’s very good site. You basically fry the tofu until it’s almost dry.

I opte out of the optional red bell peppers as they seemed wrong for such a traditional Mexican dish. The chile powder was from that wonderful Rancho Gordo we keep hearing about. The instructions suggest a non-stick pan but they’re creeping me out these days so I ended up using my Blu Skillet forged steel pan and it’s a good thing because I found you really want to crank up the heat to make the tofu drier.

It takes a good long time to get the tofu cooked down and dry enough to have some body. And while it’s kind of good, it’s just almost nothing like chorizo. After the disappointment of the fist taste, I actually started to like it, but probably not enough to make again. If I were a vegan, maybe.

I will say that these were 100% better than the jamaica (hibiscus flower) tacos I attempted earlier. They were like eating wood pulp. Very dry wood pulp.

It did get me thinking, what if you took extra firm tofu and fried it a bit and then added it to a chile sauce? That might be terrific.

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