Baked Tofu - Black Bean Burgers

Tofu is my new favorite food. I have waited long enough before jumping on the tofu bandwagon. After asking my friend PeeGee (she blogs here) at least a hundred questions about tofu, I finally took athe plunge bought two packages of firm tofu from Wholefoods. Then I let them sit pretty in the fridge till they were dangerously close to the best before date! Once I made some, I was hooked! Now I make tofu at least once a week. 

First time I had made a veggie stir fry with tofu, fed my friend and got her seal of approval. Since then there has been no looking back. That time as well, I had cut the tofu (after draining off the liquid) into longish cubes and baked it and then added to the stir fry! It was one of those rare occasions when I had totally forgotten to take a pic, even with my phone! 

This Tofu-Black Bean burger requires a little pre-planning if you are not using canned beans and you have to prep your tofu a little ahead of time. Other than that these are pretty easy to make.  These are pretty versatile too! Add your choice of spices to the tofu-black bean mix and pick your choice of additions to the burger. We ate ours with some tomatoes and cucumber slices - we did not need to add anything else as these were bursting with flavors.

Ingredients: Yield - about 7 patties

• Tofu - 14 oz pack, soft or silken
• Black Beans - 1 Cup, canned or cooked (I soaked a cup overnight in plenty of water and pressure cooked it the next morning - around 3 whistles. Drained the liquid and used it)
• Onion - 1 small
• Green Bell Pepper - 1 
• Garlic cloves - 2 or 3 fat cloves
• Cilantro - a handful, finely chopped
• Salt to taste
• Bread Crumbs - 1 Cup
• Your favorite spice mix - 1 or 2 tsp, depending on your taste (I skipped this since I used Italian herbs flavored bread crumbs)
• Burger Buns - we used organic whole-wheat buns from Wholefoods 
• Additions of your choice - lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, arugula leaves, spinach etc. You can add a slice of cheese and/or a sauce as well if you prefer. 

Drain as much water as possible from the tofu. I wrap it in a paper towel and weigh it down with a heavy pan for 20 minutes. Then discard the water, wrap it in a fresh paper towel and put the weight back on and leave it for another 20 minutes or so. Drain again and use.

In a food processor pulse together the cooked black beans, onion, green bell pepper, garlic cloves and salt, till finely minced. 

Transfer to a bowl. Now crumble in the tofu and add the bread crumbs. Throw in the finely chopped cilantro. Mix everything together. Taste it for seasoning. Add more spices or salt if required.

Grease a cookie sheet/baking sheet with some oil and place the shaped patties on it. Now stick the cookie sheet in the fridge for 20 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Bake the Tofu-Black Bean patties for 30 minutes. Assemble the burgers and serve. 

If you want you can shallow fry the patties as well. In that case chill the patties a little longer.