I'm calling these 'Thai-style' because I tried them in Thailand. It was in a cafe mostly geared to visiting foreigners, so I guess this is not a traditional Thai dish, but the spices used in the mix were the same as you find in many more traditional dishes - wild lime leaves, ginger, pepper - so I'm going with the title I've chosen.
The cafe was called Arun and it's located in the centre of Krabi City in the south of the country. Sveta and I spent several weeks in Krabi in March one year and we got to know the menu at Arun quite well. We got to know the people there too and I ended up in the kitchen poking about the ingredients, finding out what was what. The lime leaves came from a tree in a pot by the door and the cook would come out and surreptitiously snaffle a few leaves off the tree when anyone ordered tom yam, or in this case, tofu burgers.
Krabi is a pleasant town, generally, but in March it gets much even better. It gets quieter following the peak Christmas and New Year tourist season, room prices drop, cafes turn down the music, everything slows down and it becomes a great place to relax in for a few weeks while you recharge the travel batteries. We got into a routine where I'd get up and head out early, just after dawn, to spend a few hours sneaking about in the mangrove forest looking for birds, then I'd come back and we'd share a late breakfast in our hotel room before heading to the beach at Ao Nang, about half an hour away. In the evening, after a hard day's swimming and sunbathing, we'd choose a place for dinner (which was often Arun) then pick up the next days breakfast, along with maybe a few Chang beers, at the wee shop on the way back to the hotel. It wasn't like that every day... but most days it was.
One day, we decided to be a bit more adventurous and head for a national park not too far from Krabbi city. We tried to organise transport through various travel agents, but it all seemed a bit expensive so we took a sawn thew ( a covered pickup that travels a fixed route) to the edge of the city and walked to the junction of the road where we'd seen a sign to the park. Sure enough, a cruising pickup driver with no passengers spotted us and we negotiated a good rice for both us and him, to go to the park gate. He asked us if we'd like him to wait but we figured there'd be other pickups hanging about the car park when we returned. There weren't.
We spent a couple of hours exploring the park and the river that runs through it. It was beautiful. I saw a Rusty-naped Forktail, which is a stunning little black and white bird with a long zebra striped forked tail and a bright chestnut back. We climbed up beside a spectacular waterfall and sat by the cool pools, then we followed a trail into the jungle where we saw flying lizards. When we returned to the gate the car park was empty. We decided to walk, figuring we'd see any taxis passing as there was only one road. Every dog in the neighbourhood snarled, barked and bared it's teeth at us on the way down the hill. I guess they don't see many strangers on foot. We didn't see any taxis and very few other cars, but after an hour a couple of kids on a motor bike offered us a lift. We thought it was very kind of them and we said so, but declined their offer, even though we'd seen four guys on a motor bike on several occasions; it can be done. Half an hour later, a guy in a pickup who was delivering propane gas bottles stopped and told us to hop on the back. He took us a few klicks down the road and dropped us at the junction with a busier road. From there we walked for another hour before a friendly couple on the way back from a market stopped and gave us a lift. They were on a motorbike too, but they had a metal box-sidecar type thing stuffed full of fold up furniture, a big umbrella and bags of whatever they had been trying to flog at the market. We climbed on top of the gear and they took us to the main road. It was a tiring day out, but we got to meet some friendly people and have a laugh by sign language and we saw a load of fantastic scenery and different animals and birds.
We'll go back to Krabbi for sure. It's a great place to hang out and the foods good too. Here's the recipe for Arun special Thai-style tofu burgers. This will make about eight burgers.
I'll just comment on the lime leaves, before we start. I used dry ones when I tried this at home and I crumbled them quite finely before adding them to the mix. That worked out all right, but you are lucky enough to have a supply of fresh leaves, the best way to deal with them is to lay three or four on top of each other and, using a very sharp knife, slice them diagonally into narrow slivers. ... OK? That's what Thai cooks do. Now, here are the construction instructions.
Ingredients
About 500g of tofu
2 or 3 tablespoons of flour
3 or 4 wild lime leaves
A piece of root ginger
Black pepper
Salt
Oil for frying
Mash the tofu and add the ginger, peeled and finely chopped, and the crushed or sliced lime leaves and mix together well. Mix in the salt and pepper and one table spoon of the flour, and form patties from the mixture. Sprinkle the rest of the flour on a small plate and dust the patties in it, then fry them in vegetable oil over a medium heat for about five minutes each side.
Serve on buns with all the usual stuff - lettuce, onion rings, mustard, ketchup etc.