This was an interesting pick by Vegan Aide. The recipe is so simple that it relies on the flavour of the shrimp and there didn’t seem much room to play with it. I’m sure that others will have picked less obvious substitutions for the shrimp but I couldn’t really see past tofu. Actually, that’s not quite true. I did think of using oyster mushrooms but couldn’t get hold of any. Tofu it was then. But how to cook and flavour it?
There’s a recipe for “crab” mashed potatoes in the second Horizons book. I know that crab and shrimp are completely different things but since it’s 25 years since I ate either I wasn’t going to let a small detail like that bother me. Using this recipe for tofu gave me a different cooking method too. The tofu is cubed finely and tossed with diced onion, green pepper, tomato, garlic, Old Bay, white wine and olive oil. I also added some kelp powder for extra fishiness and chilli flakes from the Tyler recipe. It’s then baked for about 10 minutes and you’re left with firm cubes of tofu in a lovely juicy liquid.
I cooked linguini and then tossed it with all the tofu mixture, chopped parsley and dill, lemon juice and a bit of margarine.
I suspect that this is nothing like shrimp. I’ve had vegan shrimp in chinese restaurants and although it always looks great it tends to be a bit rubbery. That certainly wasn’t the case here, with lovely juicy tofu and a salty herby buttery sauce. I really enjoyed it and thanks VA for the great pick. Can’t wait to see what the others do on Tami’s website.
Cooking the Vegan Books 
You just can’t go wrong with tofu! This looks delicious.
The thought of using tofu never even crossed my mind, I’m sure the spice mixture you used was really good. I was debating about adding kelp powder, but considering I was the only one eating it, I knew I would regret making something taste even more fishy.
That looks and sounds delicious. I think the combo of Old Bay and kelp was the perfect choice!