Tofu Scramble With Pasta
August 10, 2011
Tofu scrambles are pretty weird. I’m just gonna be up front about that. Another thing that we need to get out of the way is the word scramble…. I didn’t name this dish, and if I did, I wouldn’t have used the word scramble because immediately people think of eggs when they hear scramble. Granted, it looks a little like scrambled eggs, and it’s good for breakfast, and it’s good with ketchup, but that’s where the similarities end. (whether or not ketchup is good with scrambled eggs is not up for debate, nor is it “regional”, it’s just true.) Lots of times when people first try a tofu scramble, their reaction is something like “this doesn’t really taste like eggs”. Recently I even got a “this would be great with eggs in it”. Ok. This is a weird dish whose cooking method and flavor have nothing to do with scrambled eggs. Disclaimers sorted, moving on!
I love how popular this dish has become! The vegan community discovered nutritional yeast and suddenly everywhere there are tofu scrambles. I’ve had it from nice restaurants, quick buffets, frozen food, “just add tofu” mix from a box, plus a few dozen varieties from my own kitchen. As you might expect, the ones I’ve been cooking lately are a mix of theories from all the strange iterations I’ve had. Most of the time this dish ends up being a really casual, slow cooked affair. This is the first of many different takes that I’ll eventually blog about, and my primary motivation this time was just to cook a lot of hearty food. The nutritional yeast matches well with basic American staple flavors, so I used corn and pasta this time to get a bunch of food without too much fuss. Spinach isn’t exactly necessary in this dish, but at the same time I can’t ever recall having it without it. Also I just love spinach. : )
