Bethany's Vegan Kitchen

This creamy egg salad is a good source of plant-based protein, makes for a great sandwich filling, and more importantly, it tastes like egg. To give this an egg flavour I used kala namak, also known as black salt. You can buy kala namak online or in health food shops

Yield; Four servings Prep time; 5 minutes

You’ll need;

1. One 300g/10.5oz tofu (use medium firm, firm or extra firm, depending on your preference)
2. Four tablespoons of egg free mayonnaise
3. One teaspoon of American mustard, or other mild mustard
4. One quarter of a teaspoon of turmeric
5. One small punnet (around 20g) of salad cress, washed and trimmed
6. Black salt and black pepper to taste

Method;

• Remove the tofu from its packet, drain the water from it and pat the tofu dry. Roughly chop 100g/3.5oz of the tofu, and add it into a blender or food processor. Add the mayonnaise, mustard and turmeric into the blender/food processor and blend until totally smooth. You may need to pause and scrape down the sides
• Roughly chop the remaining tofu into small pieces. I like to vary the sizes to create a less uniform look, as this makes it look more like egg
• Add the blended tofu mixture and the chopped tofu into a mixing bowl, add in the cress and gently fold everything together
• Season to taste with the black salt and black pepper, you may wish to omit the pepper altogether as the cress is already peppery. I usually add a quarter of a teaspoon of black salt, but you can use more or less than that to suit your taste
• Refrigerate for a minimum of 30 minutes, I find making this in the evening and refrigerating overnight is best. That way the tofu really takes on the other flavours. Eat in sandwiches, with salads, or as a baked potato topping

Kala Namak/Black Salt Tips

1. Black salt can be used to create cooked egg dishes too. For example, if you want to add an egg flavour to a tofu scramble simply fry the vegetables, add tofu and turmeric, then season with black salt right at the end
2. When you add black salt is very important if you’re cooking with it. The cooking process will kill the sulphur present in the salt, and you won’t get the egg flavour. However if you add it right at the end, the sulphur will still be present, giving an authentic egg flavour to your tofu scramble
3. Personally, I buy my black salt from amazon. There’s plenty of brands to choose from, some will require you to have a salt grinder, or you can buy ground salt if preferred. You can also check the reviews to make sure you’re actually getting black salt, and not some random coloured salt which has no egg flavour