The Torta. In this case, asada de soya. This beautiful sandwich is built upon a telera or bolillo and can be stacked with everything you wanna put on it. Well maybe not everything.

As always, if you dig this recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and share with a friend your love of the almighty Torta.

The Vegan Torta De Asada…de soya.

VEGAN TORTA DE CARNE ASADA

prep time: 15 minutes
cook time: 30 minutes

All hail the Torta.

This recipe requires you to soak some soy curls, make a marinade, marinate the soy curls and toast up a telera/bolillo.

First you’re going to get your soy curls soaked.

What you’ll need:

soy curls
water

Pour a bunch of soy curls into a bowl. Add water so it’s all submerged. This will yield as many sandwiches as you want, I made enough to have leftovers.

Once your soy curls are soaked, throw em in a strainer and then back in the bowl so they are no longer…submerged.

Now it’s time to start your marinade.

What you’ll need:

dried ancho chile
dried guajillo
dried chile de arbol
garlic
onion
orange
lime
salt
pepper
vegan worcestershire
liquid smoke
soy sauce
molasses

Get out 3-4 guajillo peppers and rinse them off. Cut the stem off and remove the veiny stuff from inside. Pop the seeds out too if you don’t want it super spicy.

Do the same with 1-2 chile de arbol. These are spicier take that into consideration when you determine how many of the seeds you’ll keep. But you knew that.

Repeat again with 1-2 ancho chiles.

(I should have taken a picture of all of the chiles here but I didn’t, sorry.)

Chop half a red onion into chunks. Peel a few cloves of garlic to your liking. I used four.

Toss it all into a pot and bring the flame up to medium low. You’re going to gently toast everything first before adding other stuff.

Let the contents of the pot toast up for 2-3 minutes and then add a splash of water. Let everything stir and steam up for a minute. Then add two cups of water to the pot and bring it up gradually to a boil.

Once your pot is boiling, drop the flame to a simmer.

Cut up a lime and an orange. Squeeze the juice of half an orange in there. Squeeze the whole lime in there. Add salt, pepper, a few generous dashes of liquid smoke, a quick glug of molasses, a tablespoon of soy sauce and a couple shakes of worcestershire. I should stop eyeing things out but I won’t.

Now your fun new pot of stuff is going to be blended into a marinade. Blend the contents in batches (if you have a small blender like I do) and when completed, add to a heat-safe bowl.

…into this! Oh hey look, the soy curls from earlier.

Next, as you probably correctly assumed, you’re going to add the soy curls to the marinade.

Now this would certainly benefit from marinating for at least an hour and I highly suggest you do that. I did not do that because I was starving.

Now you’re gonna cook these things.

What you’ll need:

marinaded soy curls
olive oil
salt
pepper
cacao powder (yes for real, trust me)

Toss some oil in a pan and crank it up to medium heat. Once you’ve arrived to the appropriate temperature, add a bunch of the soy curls in careful not to overcrowd the pan. Let these cook for a few minutes on each side and add more marinade if they begin to dry out.

Now when you do add a splash of marinade in, toss in a little less than a tablespoon of cacao powder. This isn’t going to make your protein chocolatey or anything like that. It will bring a little robustness and color to the curls and it’s definitely a move I picked up from Binging with Babish.

These are cooked but still need a little more time in the pan.

Feel free to add another glue of molasses and worcestershire to the pan along with the cacao and you will come nearer to your desired carne asada-like color. Once your curls are all cooked, remove them from the pan and stick them in a heat safe bowl.

Add salt and pepper to taste. Squirt a bunch of lime on there.

Now the main part of this recipe is complete, time to assemble your Torta. You can definitely have fun with this part, add things that I didn’t or however you wanna do it. But as follows is how I assembled mine…I didn’t have good avocados on hand.

What you’ll need:

bolillo/telera (I used bolillo)
tomato
lettuce
onion
vegan sour cream
lime
vegan refried beans

And you know, throw some avocado, cheese or whatever you want on there.

Slice up some tomatoes very thinly. Shred up some lettuce. Dice up the other half of that onion from earlier. I pressed the tomatoes with a paper towel gently to get rid of some of the excess liquid.

In your pan you cooked the soy curls on, throw both halves of your bread-of-choice on there to toast.

Beautifully toasted! This step is MANDATORY!

For real though, if you don’t toast the buns appropriately, you’re going to have a bad time. And a soggy Torta.

Toss some refried beans on there, add your soy curls, a few slices of tomato, a fistful of onion and as much shredded lettuce as you want. Got salsa on hand? Add that too. Cheese? Sure why not. Avocado? I wish.

Take some vegan sour cream and add lime juice to it. Voila, crema. Add that directly to one of your buns.

Yeah maybe should have put the tomato underneath but I didn’t want to tomato up the bread!

Now finish stacking up your Torta, get a cross-section for Instagram and tag me in that shit when you post it.

And you know, take a look under the hood and make sure everything is working properly.