Japanese foods--tofu

[torakris]

what are your favorite ways to eat tofu, Japanese style?

what are some of your favorite tofu products?

[butterchik]

This past winter I was living in Niigata-ken and became addicted to the very popular dish of silken tofu, cold, with fresh grated ginger, julienned shiso and green onions on top. Sometimes served with the tiniest dried fish I have ever seen (about 3mm long!)

At my last "family" meal there I was served the tofu with a new variation for spring - it was a very finely sliced shallot-like veg - very subtle, almost gingery, my hosts said it was very special.

Any guesses?

[Jinmyo]

Agedashi tofu makes me weep, it's so good.

Hiyayako. I'll use blood orange reductions, dashi with yuzu, pureed kimchee, all manner of things to surround a perfect silken block set into a round black bowl.

I roast cotton tofu with various Chinese chile oils and mushrooms.

[torakris]

Agedashi tofu makes me weep, it's so good.

Hiyayako. I'll use blood orange reductions, dashi with yuzu, pureed kimchee, all manner of things to surround a perfect silken block set into a round black bowl.

Jin has hit my 2 favorites.

In the summer I make hiyayakko a couple times a week and I don't think I have ever had the same topping twice!

I also love ganmodoki grilled or seared in a frypan and topped with grated daikon and ponzu, this is also great with atsuage.

with aburage I liket o grill it then top it with tsuyu and grated radish and minced Japanese leeks .

[jhlurie]

I probably never had a really worthy piece of Tofu until I was around 24 or 25. Then again, I'd not eaten much Korean or Japanese food until that age. Years of inferior quality Tofu at American-style Chinese buffets, the Tofu overcooked--and not that good to begin with--almost ruined it for me.

I've spent the decade since then making up for it. I like the firmer tofus, the ones that don't turn into mush. Grilled, Korean-style please, along with something spicy. Or in a savory Vietnamese dumpling soup. Or if I have to have it in Chinese food, recently I had some superior Tofu at a Chinese ethnicity Korean noodle restaurant (maybe that's cheating), where they mixed with it with pork bits, onions and black bean sauce and toss it in with noodles.

Also, Malysian style, again very spicy. They use Tofu very well too.

Okay, I'm not helping the Japanese topic here. I like the TYPE of Tofu in Japanese food, but I think that a few of the other cuisines in the region use it a bit more creatively.

[torakris]

shira-ae (tofu dressed vegetables) is another great way to use tofu:

http://recipes.egullet.com/recipes/r328.html

[claire797]

I take cubes of extra-firm tofu, marinate them in a mixture of soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, ginger, sherry, garlic and rice vinegar, then bake them on a cookie sheet at 350 for 30 minutes. The marinade/sauce caramelizes in the oven and you get a firm, baked tofu with a chewy crust. Yum. You can pop them straight into your mouth or throw them into a batch of sesame noodles.

[DavidJS]

Since I'm fairly health conscious and try to avoid eating meat as an everyday meal. I sometimes substitute tofu quite abit. Especially pasta with pesto sauce substituting the chicken! Just pan fry (extra firm tofu) slightly with sum organic extra virgin olive oil and add a sprinkle of dry basil and fresh black pepper. Then chop that sucker into small squares and add it to your pesto sauce. Voila!!! Be sure to purchase fresh (not the dry kind) spinach linguine.

[margaret]

I really do love bean curd in all its incarnations, but forced to choose...I'd have to say hiya yakko too, if it's nice tofu. Or in the winter, yu-dofu - blocks of tofu in a pot of steaming soup, just a light dashi, then dipped into ponzu. Or perhaps Kyoto yuba (tofu skin).

I have a Japanese cookbook about tofu, and it gives some interesting examples of various bean curd products - Tofu-you, which I've never had, but seems to be some kind of tofu cheese from Okinawa. The description explains that it's dried, salted, mixed with awamori (Okinawan liquor) and then perhaps fermented. It's a bit unclear. Anyone ever tried this? The accompanying recipe has it as an ingredient in a seaweed salad.

Also from Okinawa is Jimami Tofu, which seems to contain peanuts and potato starch.

Okinawa is so different from Japan, though, so I guess it shouldn't surprise me that I've never had these things, huh.

The cookbook is pretty good, though, and gives ideas for uses of tofu that I may not have thought of.

[Jinmyo]

Then there's Koya-tofu, the frozen then thawed cotton tofu that has most of its moisture removed during thawing leaving it very prous and spongy. Absorbent to sauces and soups.

But really I think that fresh silken tofu is best served by Japanese cuisine and the cuisine by it.

[smallworld]

I've tried tofu-yo and thought it was awful. Definately one of those acquired tastes that I have no interest in acuiring.

Hiya-yako is my favourite, but it has to be good tofu. It took a while to learn that the cheap supermarket silken tofu is only good cubed in salads and miso soup.

If it's a really good tofu then the classic grated ginger, sliced green onions, bonito flakes and soy sauce are all I want on top. Otherwise anything goes, but kimchi is a favourite, as is mentaiko mixed with sliced green onions and sesame oil.

Butterchik, the mystery topping may have been myoga. Although the usual season for myoga is late summer, recently it can be found year-round (it comes up in my garden every October, which is pretty late). I love myoga and think it's a great topping for hiya-yako.

[torakris]

another one of my favorite dishes is mapodofu(and its many other spellings), though of Chinese origin it has found a new home in Japan.

My kids request this almost weekly, I made it last night by tossing in some steamed baby choy.

[goyatofu]

I enjoy agedashi tofu alot, although being chinese, I have to say the Chinese know how to make tofu. From the silken soft tofu to the brown-colored dried tofu which you can julienne and put into stirfrys....hmmm

I also like "tofu-steak" which is soft tofu dipped in egg and pan fried, topped with bonito and tokatsu sauce. It's very "neighbourhood restaurant" stuff, but a very nice indulgence.

[herbacidal]

I enjoy agedashi tofu alot, although being chinese, I have to say the Chinese know how to make tofu. From the silken soft tofu to the brown-colored dried tofu which you can julienne and put into stirfrys....hmmm

there's ethnic pride shining thru. ok, i got it too.

I also like "tofu-steak" which is soft tofu dipped in egg and pan fried, topped with bonito and tokatsu sauce.  It's very "neighbourhood restaurant" stuff, but a very nice indulgence.

that sounds damm good. i must be in the wrong neighborhood.

always said i have to move soon.

[Jinmyo]

I've had some wonderful Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese silken tofu. But the best I've had has always been Chinese.

There's a Chinese place about 5 miles from here that makes much of the silken tofu sold in Chinatown. When I'm going to do a lot of agedashi tofu or hiyayako tofu (say for twenty to thirty-five people) I have someone drive over there to pick it up. As fresh as fresh can be.

Oooh.

[torakris]

You guys need to come to Japan and eat some tofu!

I have never had good Japanese tofu outside of Japan and why are those little boxes that last forever so popular, I have yet to run across those here!

[jrufusj]

Oh! How awful is that everlasting tofu in the box?!?! It's like the Everready bunny.

Like Kristin, I love mapodofu. I haven't had it in Japan, but eat it frequently in Taiwan and Korea. Kristin, in what kind of restaurants does it appear most frequently in Japan? Other than one really good Taiwanese-run Chinese restaurant I was taken to by my family in Asukasa, I've never been happy with Chinese food in Japan. Too many boring, bland but greasy meals in expensive hotel-based Chinese restaurants have made me prejudiced.

Ahh...silken tofu. It's pretty good in Korea (sun dubu), but nothing like Japanese tofu.

I still remember the first time I ate incredibly simple, sublimely fresh local tofu in Kyoto with nothing but a small bit of ponzu and the slightest garnish of aonegi. Sheer bliss -- I could have eaten an entire bean field worth.

Jim

[Jinmyo]

Welcome to eG, Jim.

That tofu in a box stuff gives me the willies. Sometimes I morbidly pick up one and squeeze it a bit and put it back on the shelf. A frisson of weirdness.

[torakris]

Like Kristin, I love mapodofu.  I haven't had it in Japan, but eat it frequently in Taiwan and Korea.  Kristin, in what kind of restaurants does it appear most frequently in Japan?  Other than one really good Taiwanese-run Chinese restaurant I was taken to by my family in Asukasa, I've never been happy with Chinese food in Japan.  Too many boring, bland but greasy meals in expensive hotel-based Chinese restaurants have made me prejudiced.

mapodofu is available normally at any Chinese restaurant and occasioanlly at family restaurants or teishoku style places and then occasionally you will find it at some out of the way place where it is the least expected thing.

I don't really care for Chinese food in Japan, coming from the US I thought "wow" this is what "real" Chinese food tastes like, then I went to China................

I guess each country adapts it to suit their own tastes, the Chinese restaurants are really hit and miss for me (the Japanese seem to like them though) and I rarely go anymore, my two favorites Hei Chin Rou (may be messing up this spelling) and Bamiyan are on completely opposite sides of the spectrum. Bamiyan being a family restaurant chain and very cheap (most dishes under $5 and ramen for only $3) while Hei Chin Rou, I think it may be the biggest restaurant in Yokohama's China town, multistoried with different menus for each floor can easily run close to $100 for 2.

[denise_jer]

Ma Po Tofu is one of my absolute favorite Chinese dishes ! When I lived in Chicago, I found a wonderful resturant that made a wonderful version, but since moving to Minnesota, I've had to make my own. I found a great recipe for it in Pei Mei's Chinese Cookbook Volume I that we use all the time. Absolutely yummy!

[FoodZealot]

There's a contemporary noodle place near me that makes a simple tofu salad that I enjoy. It's a portion of soft tofu, covered with shredded iceberg lettuce, thin tomato slices, kaiware sprouts and bonito flakes, with a creamy sesame dressing.

This probably makes me a tourist. Going back into lurk mode.

~Tad

[torakris]

There's a contemporary noodle place near me that makes a simple tofu salad that I enjoy.  It's a portion of soft tofu, covered with shredded iceberg lettuce, thin tomato slices, kaiware sprouts and bonito flakes, with a creamy sesame dressing.

This probably makes me a tourist.  Going back into lurk mode.

~Tad

not touristy at all!

sounds quite good in fact, I have seen tofu "salads" like that all over Japan.

The worst one I every had was at Gyukaku (the yakiniku joint that has spread all over the world) and it was tofu, cucumbers, tomatoes, croutons tosed with Italian dressing, I just didn't like the croutons with it............

[gus_tatory]

two of you referred to "cotton tofu"--is this the little shreds of tofu skin that are skimmed off during processing?

what should i look for at my Korean-Japanese grocer to ensure i'm getting cotton tofu?

thanks!

[torakris]

two of you referred to "cotton tofu"--is this the little shreds of tofu skin that are skimmed off during processing?

what should i look for at my Korean-Japanese grocer to ensure i'm getting cotton tofu?

thanks!

the tofu skin you are referring to is called yuba and this wonderful product really deserves its own thread!

Cotton tofu refers to a certain type of tofu.

In Japan there are two basic tofus:

momen-goshi, often just called momen (the Japanese word for cotton), is made by placing the tofu curds onto cotton cloths in the molds and allowing the water to drain away. This produces a firm tofu with very noticable cloth marks on it.

kinu-goshi, kinu being the Japanese word for silk, is softer and much more delicate. It is made with a thicker milk and very little of the excess water is drained, it is not wrapped at all and the term silken refers to its texture.

I have know idea of how they make the stuff in those boxes!

Edited September 6, 2003 by torakris (log)

[torakris]

to find the Japanese types in a store here are the characters to look for:

momen 木綿 (cotton or firm tofu)

kinu-goshi 絹ごし (silken or soft tofu)

and just to make sure you are really getting tofu, the characters for tofu look like this:

豆腐