Taco Tuesday: Gochujang tofu, peanut slaw and grilled miso eggplant

This week for Taco Tuseday I am going to take a culinary journey to the far east in the gochujang laden land of Korea. This taco is vegan and also gluten free. Gochujang is a sweet and spicy fermented red chili paste. You can make it yourself, but you wont have bad results if you use store bought. I like to use Annie Chung's gochujang, and it says on the bottle it really "good on everything". This is a vegan taco, but if you had not known before hand you probably would think the tofu was egg and the eggplant was steak( yes its that good). The only thing you want to do ahead of time is deal with the eggplant. Soaking salted eggplant is essential for having tasty eggplant. If you do this over a bowl you will notice that a brown liquid comes out, this is a bitter liquid (if you don't believe me try some of the juice and you will be salting and soaking your eggplant in the future). They can be soaked for at least on hour, then hit them with your marinade overnight for some serious umami joy. 

Ingredients:

1 block extra firm tofu

1 package Tortillas

1 cup chopped scallion

1 medium eggplant

1 cucumber

2 carrot

2 limes

4 tbsp gochujang (korean hot pepper paste)

4 tbsp peanut butter

2 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp rice vinegar

2 tbsp dark miso paste

sesame seed fo garnish

Instructions:

First thing your going to do is ready your eggplant. Do the soak and marinade involved --  with this it would be best to start the night before or in a bind 4-5 before hand. Slice your eggplant into 1/2 circles. Put on a wire rack over the sink or big pot, and salt both sides, coating thoroughly. Let salt draw the bitter juices out of eggplant, rinse salt off put in bowl one hour later. Then mix dark miso with 1/2 cup water, mix well. Coat eggplant in miso mixture, cover and let marinate overnight. If you dont have time due, note that the longer the marinade the better the flavor.

Cut your cucumber and carrot in a matchstick fashion, and put in mixing bowl. Add in 1/2 chopped scallion to bowl. Add 2 tbsp sesame oil, 4tbsp peanut butter, 1tbsp soy sauce, 2tbsp rice vinegar into bowl. Mix vegetables and dressing well. Cover and let sit in fridge to develop flavor.

Heat up large dutch oven or skillet with 1-2 tbsp of sesame oil. When pan starts smoking, start crumbling in your tofu. Crumble by squeezing pieces of the tofu between your hands -- squeeze vigorously.  Let your tofu start brown, stirring occasionally. When tofu has gotten a nice brown, add in a mixture of 3tbsp gochujang to 1/2 cup water. Also add in 1/2 cup chopped scallions.Let cook down for 2-3 minutes, equally coating all tofu in gochujang sauce.

Heat up your Tortillas in pan -- medium hot pan, couple minutes on each side. Set aside

While tofu is cooking heat up a grill pan (if you dont have a grill pan you can use a skillet). Put marinated eggplant on grill pan, cookin 2-3 minutes per side. Make sure your eggplant has good char marks on them if using a grill pan. Take off heat, cut into strips and put aside.

You are now ready to assemble your taco. Start first layer of taco with tofu gochujang mixture. Then lay out strips of eggplant. Top with peanut slaw, sesame seeds and dollop of gouchujang sauce for extra spicy and flavor. Serve with slice of lime. 

Nosh Hard. Nosh Burlington.