Tofast, tofurious

Soy proteins are not my preferred way of getting my daily non-animal flesh allotment of amino acidy goodness. But I had a lot of tofu left over from last week's thenthuk, and what better use for tofu than to try to imitate yet another meat dish that was dear to my non-vegetarian heart: bulgogi.

This was just so good. The caramelized, slightly charred outside, the marinated onions and scallions and peppers, the steamed bok choy and enoki, the rice that soaked up the thickened, syrupy marinade... There was one flaw, however, which was that like an idiot I thought adding more than the recommended amount of red pepper flakes would be a good idea. It wasn't too spicy for my tastes, but it was a little overwhelming to the more subtle aspects of the marinade (like grated pear and orange bits).

I'm definitely making this again. It was more labor-intensive and, to my chagrin, more of a dirty dish generator than most of what I cook, but it was worth it. If you'd like to give this a shot, just pick any bulgogi marinade recipe off the Internet that looks good, press some tofu (or buy pressed tofu) and let it sit in the marinade all day, and pan-fry it in a hot, sesame oil-coated pan, with the marinade in there so that everything will caramelize together. You could obviously do the same with thinly sliced beef or chicken, but where's the fun in that? The advantage of bulgogi is that the sauce is the star; you might as well keep it vegetarian while you're at it.