Tofu Inasal

My hometown is known for its "Chicken Inasal" or grilled chicken. In my opinion, Chicken House is the best place to enjoy a stick or two of chicken inasal with garlic rice drenched in anato oil. Hardcore chicken inasal lovers might venture to Aida's at "Manokan Country". This area houses multiple open air eateries that more delicate eaters might want to avoid.

The best way to eat chicken inasal is on a banana leaf, and eaten with your bare hands. I will admit that I am bad at eating with my fingers. Case in point, I once ate at Manokan country with friends and spent a few minutes staring helplessly at my food. Someone finally realized that I didn't know how to eat with my hands and asked for a spoon and fork (did I mention we don't use knives?). To this day I need at least a fork to peel the flesh away from the bones and get that oily mound of rice into my mouth.

Living in another continent means not having access to this delectable dish, thus the need to improvise and ways to recreate chicken inasal from memory.

I like to cook large quantities of food and eat them throughout the week. I tire of meat easily so cooking up a large batch of chicken inasal means hating my lunch after 1 meal. Fortunately for me, I remembered how firm tofu absorbs flavours and is an excellent substitute for meat, hence coming up with tofu inasal. Calling it inasal is a misnomer as I don't actually grill it (weather hasn't been warm enough) but instead cooked it on a stove top grill pan. I would like to try it over a charcoal grill once the weather warms up.

If you asked me for the recipe I would have to tell you that I actually don't have a fixed recipe. I can tell you the ingredients and general proportions but because I base everything off on taste, it's really up to your preference. As an overall rule, I think of recipes as suggestions and not strict rules (unless I'm dreading on unknown territory then I'll not deviate from the recipe).

Ingredients:
Calamansi or Limes (I really want to try using 7up)
Garlic
Ginger
Vinegar
Soy sauce (yes, I use soy sauce. Others don't but I marinate this overnight and find it too sour if I don't add soy sauce)
Brown sugar (For some reason any dish that involves a salty-sour combo requires a sprinkling of sugar (source: Grandmom)
Course ground pepper

Directions:
I use the juice of about 1-2 limes, half a bulb of garlic, 1 medium ginger root (think 3 finger lengths or enough to fill a liquid measuring cup up to the 1/4 line). I then fill this up to the 1/2 cup line (so 1/2 cup vinegar) then add 1/2 cup soy sauce. My general rule is it must be saltier than sour, and sugar is used to curb the acidity. If you have annato seed or powder you could add 1/4 teaspoon (I usually dump an unspecified amount) to this.

Pour everything over your sliced tofu (drain and pat dry) and marinate it for at least 1 hour.

I then "grill" this while "basting" it with a mix of warmed olive oil and annato seed or powder (keeps it from drying out while cooking).