Crispy oven-baked potatoes and parsnips with smoked tofu in BBQ marinade and vegan arugula mayonnaise

Ingredients for 3 servings:

• 1.8 kg potatoes, mainly waxy
• 500 g parsnip(s)
• 2 ½ liters of water
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 3 tbsp sunflower oil
• 4 tsp black cumin
• n. B. Salt, coarse
• n. B. Pepper, black
• some chives, chopped
• 200 g smoked tofu
• 2 m.-sized onion(s)
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tsp maple syrup
• 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp, leveled paprika powder, smoked
• ½ tsp ginger powder
• 2 pinches of cayenne pepper
• 4 tsp oil for frying
• 60 g sunflower seeds
• 25 g arugula
• 75 ml water
• 20 ml apple cider vinegar
• 20 ml lemon juice
• ½ tbsp mustard, medium hot
• ½ tsp maple syrup
• ¼ tsp salt
• 75 ml sunflower oil
• e.g. pepper, white

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour; Cooking/baking time approx. 45 minutes; Total time approx. 1 hour 45 minutes

First, prepare the arugula mayonnaise: Wash the arugula, spin it dry, and roughly chop it. Finely puree the sunflower seeds with the water. Add the arugula, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, maple syrup, mustard, and salt, and puree everything again. Season with white pepper to taste. If using an immersion blender, let it cool slightly with the pureed mixture so that the oil doesn’t emulsify into a base mixture that’s too warm. Blend in the oil in a thin stream until the mixture reaches a slightly firm consistency. Cover the mayonnaise and refrigerate for later use. Slice the smoked tofu. Place the slices between two layers of kitchen paper and weigh them down with something like a carton of milk so the tofu can lose some of the liquid. Peel the potatoes and parsnips and cut them into medium-sized cubes. Preheat the oven to 260°C with a baking tray and parchment paper. Bring the specified amount of water to a boil, stir in the baking soda, and add the potatoes and parsnips. Bring to a boil once, then simmer for just 60 seconds—no longer. Drain the potatoes and parsnips immediately, return them to the pot, and let them steam off over very low heat for another 2-3 minutes, shaking the pot occasionally until the surface of the potatoes is dry. Now pour in the oil and add the coarse salt. Cover the pot and shake vigorously for a few seconds until the potatoes are coated with a thick paste of the released starch. Spread the pre-treated potatoes and parsnips flat on the baking paper on the baking sheet. Place the baking sheet in the lower third of the oven and roast everything at 260°C (500°F) top/bottom heat until crispy, about 30 minutes. Open the oven door briefly occasionally to let the steam escape. Turn the potatoes halfway through. For the last 5-8 minutes, sprinkle the black cumin seeds over the tofu and let it roast. Every oven is different, so don’t forget to keep an eye on the potatoes towards the end. In the meantime, dice the tofu slices and peel and dice the onions. Mix together a marinade from soy sauce, maple syrup, apple cider vinegar, smoked paprika, and ginger powder and season with cayenne pepper. Heat the oil in a pan and fry the tofu cubes and onions for about 4-5 minutes. Then pour the marinade over the tofu and cook for about 2-3 minutes while stirring. Let everything cook briefly until it caramelizes. When the potatoes and parsnips are roasted brown and crispy, arrange them in a deep dish, scatter the marinated tofu and onions over the tofu, season with freshly ground black pepper, and garnish with some chives. Take the arugula mayonnaise out of the fridge and either serve it with the dish or pour it directly onto the dish. The mayonnaise should be stirred in and gives the dish the necessary juiciness. Notes: The potatoes and parsnips will quickly become very soft on the outside in the slightly alkaline environment created by the baking soda, as the pectin they contain breaks down. However, they will still be raw on the inside. Shaking them with the coarse salt also roughens the surface, so that everything is finally coated with a starch layer, which will later provide the crispiness in the oven. For this reason, the cubes should not be too small, as otherwise they would fall apart during the cooking process. If you want or need to adjust the amount of water in the pot during cooking, you should also adjust the amount of baking soda, so that you use approximately 1 gram of baking soda per 1 liter of water. Larger amounts of baking soda would make the potatoes taste soapy, and too little baking soda wouldn’t raise the pH of the water enough to trigger the desired reaction in the very short cooking time, which, incidentally, continues even after cooking while the potatoes are shaken. The sunflower seeds in the mayonnaise, with their lecithin, ensure that the mixture emulsifies with the oil. Mustard supports the process. This eliminates the need for egg yolk or milk as an emulsifier. The mixture may thicken slightly in the refrigerator.