vegetarian

Japanese country style stewed eggplant or aubergine (nasu no inakani)

maki — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:43:59 +0200

It’s hard to take an appetizing picture of this eggplant (aubergine) dish. But I promise you that it’s absolutely delicious. Plus, it’s so simple to make, requiring just 6 ingredients and water.

I found it in an old Japanese cooking magazine, which had an even worse photo of the dish than the one here. I was a bit sceptical but had bought a too-big batch of eggplant at the market, and wanted a way to use some of them up. I am so glad I tried the recipe, because it’s now one of my favorite ways to have eggplant. And it’s vegan too.

There’s a saying in Japanese, akinasu yome in kuwasuna (秋なす　嫁に食わすな). It means “Don’t let your daughter in law eat fall eggplants”. People debate what the intent of this saying is; does it mean that fall eggplant are too delicious to feed to the daughter in law, who was traditionally the lowliest member of the family? Or perhaps it’s a thought of kindness, since eggplant is supposed to be a ‘cooling’ vegetable, which is not good for a pregnant or fertile young woman. Either way, there’s no doubt that eggplant is particularily delicious in late summer to early fall, when they usually produce a second crop after a first one early on.

Country-style stewed eggplant (nasu no inaka ni 茄子の田舎煮)

I’ve adapted the recipe so that you can use large Western style eggplants as well as thin Asian-style ones. (Large Western style eggplants are known as American eggplants in Japan for some reason…maybe because anything oversized is associated with the U.S.!)

6 thin Chinese or Japanese style eggplants or 2 large Western-style eggplants - choose ones that are shiny, unblemished and hard
2 small hot red chili peppers
Salt
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar (For the sugar-wary, a sugar substitute should work fine)
Sesame oil or regular vegetable oil

Cut the eggplants in half. Make thin cuts in the skin side of the eggplants about 3/4 down, so that they stay attached at the bottom. (This makes the cooking liquid penetrate the eggplant evenly, and also looks much nicer than plain chunks.) If you are using big Western style eggplants, cut in half again lengthwise; if using Asian style thin ones, you don’t have to do this. Cut into chunks crosswise.

Put the cut eggplant in a bowl of salt water (about the saltiness of water you’d cook pasta in). Put a bowl or plate on top as a weight to completely immerse the eggplant pieces, and leave for about 20 minutes. This gets rid of any bitterness in the eggplant, as well as making it easier to cook.

In the meantime, de-seed and finely chop two small red Thai chili peppers.

Drain the eggplant, and squeeze out the water. Heat up a pan with oil - you can use all sesame oil, all vegetable or olive oil, or a mixture. (Sesame oil will add a nutty flavor.) Sauté the eggplant slices until they are a little limp and coated with oil. Add the chili pepper near the end.

Put into a heavy bottomed pan, and add enough water to cover. Add the soy sauce and sugar, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer. Put an a pot lid that’s smaller than the pot (that fits inside the pot) on top of the simmering eggplant, and let simmer for about 20-30 minutes until limp but not falling apart. Let cool in the cooking liquid - it absorbs more flavor as it rests.

This keeps well for a few days in the fridge, well covered, immersed in the cooking liquid. It can be eaten hot or cold, though I think it tastes best when it is warm, eaten with a fresh bowl of rice. If you want to use it for bento, try draining off the liquid before packing.

Otoshibuta, or that small lid-inside-the-pot thing

I’ve used a small lid that fits inside the pot right on top of the simmering food. This is called an otoshibuta. Traditional Japanese otoshibuta （落としぶた）are made of wood, and I’ve sometimes seen people on some forums insisting on the necessity of a wooden otoshibuta. To that I say, nuts. Otoshibuta literally means “dropped lid”, and is put on top of cooking food so that the food cooks evenly. I usually just use a one-or-two-sizes smaller pot lid, but you can also use a heatproof plate completely wrapped in aluminum foil or kitchen paper, with a twisted ‘handle’ sticking up for easy of removal. For some delicate foods a simple layer of kitchen cooking paper or aluminum oil placed on top would be enough.

Looking at tofu

maki — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:16:56 +0200

There are several tofu recipes both here in Just Hungry as well as on Just Bento, and I’ve even shown how to make your own tofu. However, up until now I have never really tried to explain the differences between types of tofu, when to use them and how to store them. Well now is the time to fix that.

Fried tofu type 1: Aburaage

Aburaage （油揚げ）is deep fried tofu, where almost none of the soft white tofu remains. It’s also called tofu skin or tofu pocket sometimes. When the tofu is deep fried, an air pocket is formed inside which can be stuffed, as in inarizushi or eggs in treasure bags. Besides stuffing it, you can use aburaage sliced up and put into soups or stir-fries, gently cooked whole in a broth as in kitsune udon, and more.

To get rid of the excess oil on the surface, blanch aburaage in boiling water for a couple of minutes, then drain away. To loosen it up so that it’s easier to stuff, roll a round chopstick over the surface several times after blanching to loosen it up, then cut open.

The best way to store aburaage for longer than a few days is to freeze it. (The bag in the photo is actualy frozen.)

Japanese aburaage is always a rectangular sheet, but you can get small puffs or squares in Chinese markets.

Fried tofu type 2: Atsuage or namaage

Atsuage （厚揚げ）or namaage （生揚げ）is a block of tofu that has been slowly fried in oil until it forms a slightly crinkly pale brown skin. It’s stil white tofu inside though, unlike aburaage. You can get rid of the excess oil on the surface just like with aburaage, by blanching it in boiling water. Aburaage is a very versatile food, that can be pan-fried or grilled like a steak, cut up and used in stir-fries or stewed, put into soups and so on. I like using aburaage in bento recipes a lot - because it has less moisture than non-fried tofu, it keeps longer.

The two main types of plain tofu

Finally we get to plain tofu. Plain tofu can be divided into two main types: silken or kinugoshi （絹ごし）, and firm or pressed. In Japanese firm tofu is called momen （木綿）or cotton tofu. Here are a block of each: silken on the left, and firm/cotton on the right.

Here are the blocks from the side:

As you can see, the silken tofu is smoother and more watery, while the firm/cotton tofu is well, firmer and denser. Since silken tofu is much softer (higher water content), it is harder to handle if you want the tofu pieces to not fall apart. So if you are a tofu beginner and you want to use it on stir-fries or things like bacon wrapped tofu, you will want to use firm tofu. Firm tofu is less liable to fall apart, especially if you drain off the water a bit. Some recipes call for extracting even more water from the tofu (see using tofu for bento friendly recipes). On the other hand, silken tofu is more suited for recipes that call for it to be pureed, such as quick tofu pudding and baked squash and apple pudding, or in smoothies. I prefer silken tofu in miso soup, though firm is fine too.

Some other tofu types not pictured here

I don’t have these on hand so pictures are missing…

Yaki dofu （焼き豆腐）is firm tofu that’s been grilled on the outside, giving it a nice flavor.

Kouya dofu （高野豆腐）is freeze-dried tofu that is sold in the dried food section. It looks like little dried beige sponges. This is reconstituted in water before stewing. It can be a good pantry staple because it keeps indefinitely.

Yuba　（湯葉） is a Kyoto speciality. Thin films of tofu are scooped off the top of vats of warm soy milk. It’s available in dried form and is usually used in soups and such. Fresh yuba made from fresh warm soy milk is considered a great delicacy and is usually eaten with a litle soy sauce, yuzu juice and such.

How to keep tofu fresh

Once you open the vacuum sealed pack the tofu comes in, any leftovers must be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator, immersed in water. You will need to change the water every day too, but in any case don’t keep opened tofu for more than 2 or 3 days. (With homemade tofu the shelf life is even shorter - a maximum of 2 days.) If you leave tofu out of water for more than a day in the fridge, it will take on a sour taste, not to mention picking up stray refrigerator smells! It is possible to freeze tofu (see frozen tofu cutlets) but the texture will change.

As mentioned above, aburaage can be frozen. Firm atsuage can also be frozen, though the inner texture will change a bit.

Calories in tofu products

Per 100 grams or about 3.5 oz:

Aburaage: 386 calories (one piece is about 20-25g) This is the calorie count before getting rid of the surface oil, so after it’s cooked it would be a bit lower in calories.
Atsuage: 150 calories - (one piece is anywhere from 100 to 200g, depending on the brand etc.) This is the calorie count before getting rid of surface oil.
Silken tofu: 56 calories
Firm/cotton tofu: 72 calories
Yaki dofu: same as firm tofu
Kouya dofu (dry weight):　590 calories
Kouya dofu (cooked weight): 130 calories
Yuba (cooked weight): 150 calories

What about those stories I hear about soy being good for you/bad for you?

Whenever I write about soy or tofu products here, I usually get some comments or emails about how soy products are either bad for you (the current trend - makes men grow breasts and so on) or good for you (prevents certain types of cancer and what have you).

My attitude about these types of reports is this: Tofu has been eaten for hundreds or thousands of years. Generally speaking soy products are a great source of vegetable based protein and fat. And in any case, no one should be eating massive quantities of any one food product every day of the week, as seems to be the case with those reports of body builders taking lots of soy protein powder and sprouting boobies and such. Even the most die hard tofu fan in Japan, like my mother, does not eat tofu every single day. (For what it’s worth, she has IBD and finds tofu to be one of the few easily digestible proteins.) Variety is the spice of life, and your diet! See also: A problematic report on the dangers of soy.

Hopefully most if not all of your tofu related questions have been answered here. If not, ask away in the comments!

Steamed eggplants (aubergines) with spicy peanut sauce

maki — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:44:48 +0200

[From the archives: This eggplant/aubergine dish is really nice served cold, though it can be served warm too. It doesn’t heat up the kitchen since it’s made in the microwave (yes, the microwave, and it works great!) so it’s great to make on a steamy hot summer evening, with in-season eggplant. Originally published July 2007.]

Here is another summer dish. I love eggplants (aubergines), but cooking them without using a lot of oil can be a bit tricky. I read about this method of steam-cooking eggplants in the microwave in a Japanese magazine some time ago, and ever since it’s one of my favorite ways of preparing these rather spongy vegetables - they’re done in just 5 minutes without heating up the kitchen, which is hard to beat on a hot summer’s day. The whole dish takes less than 10 minutes to prepare.

Here they are served cold with a spicy peanut sauce, which makes it a very nice vegetarian/vegan main dish. Serve with rice or cold noodles.

Microwave-steamed eggplants (aubergines) with spicy peanut sauce

This makes two servings as a side dish, or one main vegan dish.

4 slim Asian style eggplants (aubergines)
2 Tbs. chunky style peanut butter (or more if you want it very peanutty)
1 1/2 Tbs. soy sauce
1 Tbs. mirin
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. red chili paste (Korean chili paste, or Harisa. If you don’t have chili paste you can add some dry chili powder)

Peel the eggplants with a vegetable peeler. Take off the tops. Wrap each one loosely in microwave-safe plastic wrap and place in a circular pattern around the edges of a round plate. Place the plate in the microwave on the rotating plate and microwave on high for about 5 minutes. (If you don’t have a rotating plate in your microwave, nuke on high for 2 1/2 minutes, then turn the plate about halfway and nuke for an additional 2 1/2 minutes.)

In the meantime, mix together the rest of the ingredients in a small pan; bring to a simmer to dissolve the sugar and amalgamate everything, then let cool. Make ready a large bowl of cold water.

Once the eggplants are soft, carefully drop them, plastic and all, into the bowl of cold water so they rapidly cool. Take them out of the water and take off the plastic; drain the eggplants if necessary.

Cut them on the diagonal into bitesize pieces and arrange them on a plate with some green garnish (here I’ve used shiso leaves). If you’ve made them in advance, chill in the refrigerator until it’s time to eat.

To serve, spoon the peanut sauce over the eggplant. Mix well with the sauce to eat.

Notes

The microwave steaming method works best with slim Asian style eggplants, but you can use the big Western style ones too - just cut them up into large cubes, and adjust the microwaving time.
The eggplants are peeled because the skins turn rather dark and grey-looking when steamed like this. The peel can be used in another dish if you want to be frugal.

Goma dofu: Sesame tofu that's not tofu

maki — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:26:09 +0200

There are some dishes in Japan that look and have a texture like tofu, but are not tofu in the traditional sense; that is, they’re not made from coagulated soy milk. One of these not-tofu tofus is goma dofu （ごま豆腐）or sesame tofu. Goma dofu is made from three simple ingredients: ground sesame paste, water, and kuzu or kudzu powder.

Goma dofu, the poster child of shoujin ryouri

Shoujin ryouri (shojin ryori) is the mostly-vegan cuisine that was developed in Buddhist monasteries in Japan, and goma dofu is one of the best known shoujin ryouri dishes. Making it from scratch is hard; kuzu powder is difficult to process from kuzu roots, and the sesame has to be ground for a very, very long time in order for it to become totally smooth. The job of grinding the sesame was assigned to low-level novice monks - the hard work was considered to be good for their character.

The lay person however can take two critical shortcuts: use readymade kuzu powder, and pre-ground sesame. In Japan pre-ground sesame paste is sold as nerigoma, but elsewhere it’s known as tahini. Granted, grinding up your own freshly toasted sesame seeds does result in a slightly more fragrant goma dofu, but tahini based goma dofu is still very good. And your elbow will be saved for playing more Wii Tennis.

Recipe: Goma dofu (sesame tofu)

Makes 12 to 16 squares.

70g (2.5 oz) tahini or nerigoma that has been stirred very well
50 g (1.75 oz) kuzu powder
500ml (2 cups plus a tablespoon) water, filtered water preferred

Equipment needed: bowl, pan, square container to mold the goma dofu

Combine the kuzu powder with a little water to make a paste. Add the rest of the water and mix well.

Put into a pan over medium heat, and add the tahini or nerigoma. Mix continuously, smooshing any lumps of sesame paste and incorporating it as well as possible into the liquid. When it heats up it will start to thicken and get a bit lumpy - keep stirring to smooth out the lumps. After a while, it will turn from milky to a bit more translucent in color and have the consistency of a thick pudding.

Wet the inside of the square container you’ll use as the mold. Pour in the hot pudding-like mixture and smooth out the top. Bang the container a few times onto a countertop or table to get rid of bubbles. Let cool to room temperature, and then put into the refrigerator to cool, about 2 hours.

Unmold and cut into squares. Serve chilled, with wasabi or grated fresh ginger and soy sauce. (The goma dofu on its own is quite bland, so it does need the sauce.) It’s really nice as a cold appetizer on a warm day. It can be stored, well covered, in the refrigerator for a couple of days.

If you want to grind your own sesame seeds

Use hulled white sesame seeds, toast lightly in a dry pan, and grind for about an hour or so in a suribachi for about an hour until totally smoooooooth. Character improving, indeed. Strain through a fine sieve before using.

Incidentally, the term goma o suru (grind sesame seeds) is a euphenism for sucking up to (or brownnosing) someone.

Variation with peanut butter

Use smooth unsweetened (and preferably unsalted) peanut butter in place of the sesame paste for a peanut tofu.

A short intro to kuzu powder

If you have gluten tolerence problems, chances are you have already encountered kuzu powder as a gluten-free thickening agent. It’s the starch produced by processing the roots of the kuzu or kudzu plant. Here’s what it looks like:

Kuzu is a very good thickener when the dish needs to have a sort of starchy-gelatinous texture and be translucent. It’s used in a variety of savory and sweet dishes in Japan. You can buy it at Japanese grocery stores or health food stores. I find that it’s usually a bit cheaper at Japanese food stores than at health food stores, but it’s still rather expensive since producing it from kuzu roots is a very laborious process.

At the moment I am rather into kuzu powder (since I found a relatively cheap source for it locally), so expect to see some more recipes using kuzu in the next few weeks here, especially since it’s very nice for cold dishes…and it’s allegedly coming up on summer (though it’s hard to tell by the weather here today!)

Read more about kuzu and how it’s made on this manufacturer’s site.

See also: kuzumochi, “mochi” squares made just from kuzu powder and sugar.

Quick take: Yogurt (yoghurt) cheese with garlic and olive oil

maki — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:04:06 +0200

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has an article about how to make yogurt (or as they spell it in the UK, yoghurt) in the Guardian. I did not want to go to the trouble of making yogurt from scratch, but I had a big pot of plain yogurt that needed to be used up so I made a sort of variation on the yogurt cheese balls further down on the page.

Yogurt cheese, in case you are unfamiliar with it, is just plain yogurt that has been drained of much of its liquid. To make it, just line a sieve with some porous cloth like cheesecloth, muslin, a coffee filter or even a couple of paper towels, spoon the yogurt in, and put the sieve with a bowl underneath in the refrigerator for at least a few hours. The more you let it sit, the drier it will become.

I strained about 2 1/2 cups of yogurt mixed with 1 teaspoon of sea salt from Friday evening to Sunday morning, by which time it had become the consistency of whipped cream cheese. I put this into a bowl, grated one garlic clove over it and drizzled on some extra virgin olive oil and mixed it up. It was the perfect spread for freshly baked hot savory scones.

I’ve never been a big fan of very sweet yogurt, so this savory yogurt spread may make more breakfast appearances.

A vegan version of nikujaga (Japanese meat and potatoes), plus how to remake Japanese recipes to make them vegan

maki — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:06:17 +0200

Nikujaga, stewed potatoes with meat, is a staple of Japanese home cooking. It’s filling and comforting, and appears quite frequently for dinner at our house. Recently though I’ve been making this vegan version more frequently, which is just as tasty as the meaty version. Thick fried tofu (atsuage) is the protein replacement, but it’s not just there for it’s nutritional benefits - I love the texture in a lot of dishes.

The recipe, plus some ideas on how to reform Japanese non-vegan recipes to make them vegan, after the jump.

Recipe: Potatoes stewed with fried tofu and green beans

Makes 4 servings as part of a Japanese meal

4 medium firm boiling type potatoes (not baking potatoes)
1 cup frozen green beans, or the equivalent amount of fresh green beans
1/2 small onion
1 to 2 squares of thick fried tofu (atsuage)
2 Tbs. sake
3 Tbs. soy sauce
2 Tbs. dark (grade B) maple syrup
1 Tbs. sesame oil

Peel and cut up the potatoes into small pieces. If using fresh green beans, cut off the tops and cut into pieces. Slice the onion.

Cover the fried tofu in boiling water, and drain. This gets rid of much of the surface oil.

Heat up a heavy-bottomed pan with the sesame oil. Add the onions and cook until translucent. Add the potato and tofu pieces, and sauté intil the oil coats the pieces well. Add the green beans and toss around some more.

Add just enough water to cover. Add the sake, soy sauce and maple syrup. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to about medium-low, put on a lid and let simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 10-15 minutes. To concentrate the flavors even more, take the lid off and simmer for an additional 10-15 minutes until the liquid is almost evaporated - this step is optional.

Serve hot or cold. The flavors mellow if you let it rest, which makes it very good for bento.

Notes

If you want bright green green beans, just add them in the last few minutes of cooking. I just add it with everything else because they taste better that way. (Sort of like the way green beans are cooked until they are almost falling apart in the South.)

This is even better if you use new potatoes.

Making non-vegan Japanese recipes vegan

If you compare this recipe to the classic nikujaga, the first thing you may notice is that there’s no meat. There is also no dashi stock used. Traditional dashi stock, which forms the basis of the majority of savory Japanese cooking, is not vegan, since one of the key ingredients is dried bonito (fish) flakes or niboshi (dried little sardines). Using a vegan dashi which uses just kombu seaweed and/or dried shiitake is an option. But it’s also possible in some cases to omit the dashi entirely, as in this recipe.

When you omit meat and dashi (or any soup stock), what you lose is a lot of umami. To make up for this, add ingredients that are inherently rich in umami or other flavoring ingredients. In the recipe above for example, the onion, sake, sesame oil, soy sauce and maple syrup add plenty of flavor to the dish - and without dashi the flavor of the potatoes comes through better too.

And about that maple syrup: Since Japanese recipes often call for sugar, using a flavorful sweetener instead of plain white sugar is a way to add some extra oomph. Raw cane sugar, brown sugar, palm sugar, maple syrup and honey are some options. Dark maple syrup goes very well with Japanese flavors.

(Incidentally, if you’re a North American visiting friends elsewhere, maple syrup makes a great gift because it’s really expensive over the pond!)

Time-tested vegan proteins

maki — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:57:49 +0100

More and more these days I’m getting requests for vegan and vegetarian recipes. While I’m not a vegetarian as I’ve stated here before, I like to eat a daily menu that’s light on meat, and am always interested in vegan and vegetarian protein options.

There are several what I’d call factory-manufactured vegan or vegetarian protein products out there, from TVP to quorn. I’m sure (or fairly sure) they are safe and wholesome to eat, but I’m more interested in traditional, or time-tested, vegan/vegetarian protein alternatives.

This is the list I’ve come up with so far. They are Japanese-centric, since that’s what I’m most familiar with. Do you have any others to add?

Soy bean products:
- Boiled soy beans
- Green boiled soy beans (edamame)
- Fermented soybeans (natto)
- Fermented black soy beans (mostly Chinese)
- Fermented soy bean paste (miso and related products; Japanese, Chinese, Korean)
- Tofu and tofu variations - fried, etc. See Looking at tofu.
- Soy milk
- Yuba (skimmed soy milk sheets)
- Tempeh (Southeast Asian)
- Okara (soy bean bran left over from making soy milk or tofu (thx for the reminder toontz!)
- Kinako (toasted and ground soy bean powder)
Chickpeas and chickpea products:
- Hummus
- Chickpea flour
- Cooked whole chickpeas
Other beans and legumes (also often available ground)
- Lentils/ Dal
- Azuki beans (also called red beans)
- White beans or navy beans
- Black beans
- Kidney beans
- Lots of other beans
Whole grains
- Brown rice and other whole-grain rices (black rice, red rice, etc.)
- Whole wheat and products made from whole wheat flour (bread, pasta, couscous, etc)
- Quinoa (particularly high in protein)
- Millet
- Whole oats
- Buckwheat
- Amaranth
Seeds and nuts and products made from them
- Sesame seeds
- Tahini
- Flax seeds
- Peanuts
- Peanut butter
- Almonds
- Cashew nuts
- Walnuts
- Hazelnuts
- All kinds of other nuts
Other whole foods
- Chestnuts
- Chestnut flour
- Coconut
- coconut milk
- Avocado
Traditional processed proteins (other than soy bean based ones)
- Fu (toasted and dried wheat gluten, 25-30g of protein per 100g, see more)
- Seitan (also wheat gluten - since the 1960s anyway)
- Kanpyou (dried gourd strips, 7.1g protein per 100g)
Protein-rich sweets
- An or anko (sweet azuki or white bean paste)
- Annin dofu (almond jelly, made with agar-agar)
- Many Indian sweets and Persian sweets are bean, chickpea based
- Ice cream! (well it is lacto-ovo-vegetarian :))

And you also have the lacto-ovo proteins if you loosen up your rules to extend to milk and eggs:

Lacto-ovo/non-vegan proteins:
- All kinds of eggs - chicken duck, quail, ostrich…
- All kinds of milk - cow, goat, sheep, etc.
- All kinds of cheeses - from cow, goat, sheep, buffalo, etc. milk
- Other milk products: butter, yogurt/yoghurt, kefir, cream, buttermilk….

Not a good protein source

Mushrooms are not a protein source, even though they are often used in vegetarian dishes as a sort of meat substitute. They may taste meaty, especially the heartier ones like portobellos (which are just overgrown brown button mushrooms) but are basically just fiber and water with small quantities of Vitamin B1 (thiamin) and B2 (riboflavin), calcium, Vitamin C and iron. They are on the other hand tasty and very low in calories. You’re getting a lot more protein from the bun part of a portobello burger than from the ‘burger’.

Fu, the mother of seitan

maki — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:48:58 +0100

Vegetarians are probably familiar with seitan as a meat substitute. Seitan is wheat gluten that has been kneaded in such a way that the gluten threads align themselves to resemble meat. It was invented by advocates of the macrobiotic food movement in Japan, specifically as a meat substitute, in the 1960s. (Wikipedia entry.)

But way before there was a macrobiotic movement, let alone seitan, people in Japan were already eating a wheat protein product called fu (麩). Like seitan, fu is made from the gluten that is extracted from wheat flour. Sometimes the gluten is mixed with other ingredients. There are two kinds of fu: raw (namafu 生麩), which is basically fresh fu; and grilled and dried (yakifu or yakibu 焼き麩). Here I’d like to focus on the dried kind which is much easier to get a hold of for people outside of Japan. It’s also a great pantry item, since it keeps for a long time.

How yakifu is made and types of yakifu

Yakifu is traditionally made by forming raw fu into various shapes, then slowly grilling it over a flame until barely colored on the outside and totally dried out. It has various names according to how it’s made, and where it comes from. Here are three types of yakifu that I happened to have in my pantry:

From top left going clockwise, they are called komachibu, chikuwabu, and shounaifu. (Chikuwabu is called that because it resembles chikuwa, the fish paste product that’s popular in oden.)

Here’s a closeup of the komachibu, which is the kind that I find to be most versatile.

As you can see, it looks like little dried bread slices. That’s because essentially that’s what they are, except without the yeast and such.

Another kind of dried fu is kurumabu, wheel-shaped fu that are about the size of a doughnut. They are often used as meatless ‘steaks’ and such. I can’t find kurumabu at my local Japanese grocery store, but you may be able to at yours.

Here is a map of Japan showing different kinds of fu and where they come from (Japanese).

A meatless protein

100 grams of dried fu has 369 calories, almost no fat and 28 grams of protein. So like seitan, it’s a pretty good vegan protein. The only people for whom fu would not be suitable are those who are gluten intolerant. (Of course this applies to seitan as well.)

But what does it taste like?

On its own, dried fu is pretty tasteless. It’s like a soft sponge that absorbs any flavors you can throw at it. The texture when dry is like stale bread, and when reconstituted it’s soft and rather silky. If seitan has a texture a little like chicken, I’d say that fu, especially komachibu, is a bit like scallops.

How to use dried fu

The easiest way to use dried fu is to just throw some into a soup or stew. You may have already encountered them in miso soups. You don’t have to limit it to miso soup though. Put some into a hearty vegetable soup, simmer briefly, and you have a fairly nutritionally complete meal. The komachibu and chikuwabu will taste like fluffy soft quenelles; the shounaibu is just a bit more dense in texture.

You can put them in in the last few minutes into a stew as well, meatless or not. If you simmer it for too long, it will start to disintegrate. (Shounaibu is more sturdy, since it’s thinly stretched and folded.)

A slightly more advanced way is to reconsitute it first in plain water, then to stew it and so on. Fu is such a popular ingredient in sukiyaki that some people called dried fu sukiyakibu. Do remember though that the reconstituted sponge has no flavor, so you’ll have to add it in by cooking it in a bit of soup or broth or sauce first.

Modern cookbooks have devised other ways of using dried fu; for example, Yumiko Kano, a cookbook author I’ve mentioned here several times before, uses komachibu as a base for mini-canapes. I haven’t tried this myself yet but it’s an intriguing idea.

As a first step though, try adding a few to a soup and see how it goes!

(And here’s a panfried komachibu recipe over on Just Bento.)

Sidenote

Although fu is a very commonly available product, seitan is virtually unknown outside of macrobiotic circles in Japan. I actually didn’t even know it had Japanese origins - I thought it came from somewhere in southeast Asia, like tempeh! It’s ironic that seitan is much better known outside of Japan - maybe because it’s used in things like Tofukey.

Lotus root mini-cakes with sweet chili sauce

maki — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:11:04 +0100

I’ve lived in Switzerland on and off now for more than a decade. During that time, I’ve slowly seen more Asian grocery stores open, and more Asian ingredients become available. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a great thing.

When I saw some fresh lotus roots at my favorite Chinese grocery store in Zürich, I did a little dance of joy. I could only find it frozen or canned before. Lotus root, known as renkon (蓮根）in Japan, is an interesting vegetable, that changes its nature by how much you cook it. When it’s raw it’s rather bitter; when cooked briefly it has a very unique, crunchy texture; when stewed for some time, it turns starchy. It’s packed with fiber and various nutrients, and even used for medicinal purposes in the past. (Wikipedia entry).

This is what a raw lotus root looks like:

The outer brown skin is peeled off (a vegetable peeler works great for this task).

You may be more used to seeing lotus root served in slices:

Sliced lotus root can be boiled or blanched, steamed, stewed, deep-fried and so on. The lacy pattern adds instant flair to your dish.

Here though I grated the raw lotus root to make little pancakes out of them. When lotus root is treated like this, the texture turns quite starchy and dumpling-like, a little like rice cakes (mochi). Generous amounts of chopped fresh coriander leaves and green onion are added, for a pan-Asian flavor. They are gluten-free, vegan, and generally quite healthy, but they taste great too.

Because they are rather dense and starchy, it’s best to make them quite small, about the size of a poker chip.

Recipe: Lotus root mini-cakes

1 lotus root about 9 inches / 25cm or so in length, to yield about 1 cup of grated root
4 to 5 Tbs. potato starch or cornstarch
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup chopped fresh coriander leaves
1/2 cup chopped green onion
Sesame oil for cooking
Sweet chili sauce or chili jam

Peel the lotus root and grate on a fine grater. Drain lightly in a fine-mesh sieve to get rid of excess moisture, but do not squeeze. Add salt.

Add enough potato or corn starch (use a gluten-free version if you are sensitive) to just hold the dough together sufficiently to form patties with. Add the chopped coriander and green onion and mix well.

Heat up a non-stick frying pan or griddle. Drizzle with a little sesame seed oil. Make little cakes or patties from the dough, and put in the hot pan. You should get about 8 to 10 little patties.

Leave to cook over medium-high heat, until the cakes move about a bit if you shake the pan. Turn each cake over carefully with a spatula. Drizzle in a little more sesame oil if necessary.

Continue cooking, flipping over more times if necessary, until the dough changes from an opaque white to transparent pale green, and the surface is browned and crispy.

Serve hot or at room temperature, with sweet chili sauce or chili jam for dipping. Great party food, or as a tasty carb component of a bento.

Some unresolved thoughts about white bean paste

maki — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:33:39 +0100

Usually when I put a recipe up here, it’s something that’s been fully resolved: that is, I’ve tried it out for myself (in most cases several times over), and I know that it works. This one is a bit different, but I thought I’d write about it in-progress, as it were, anyway.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been making batches of the same thing - white bean puree - at least once a week. This is just plain old white beans (sold around here as haricots blanc or Weissbohnen, known in the U.S. as navy beans I think) that are cooked until they are just about falling apart, drained and then whirled in a food processor until totally smooth. One reason I’ve been rather obsessed with this bean puree is because nutritionally it’s quite interesting - a balance of protein and carbohydrates, and vegan to boot. But I’m also very taken by its starchy creaminess. Oh, and it’s also really inexpensive.

I am still not sure what the best way to flavor the bean puree is. Here are some of the experiments I’ve done so far.

Sweet

White bean paste is the base of shiroan (白あん）, which is used as a pale colored alternative to azuki an, azuki (adzuki) bean paste, in traditional Japanese sweets. But the recipes I’ve seen for making shiroan call for an astonishing amount of sugar - a minimum of 2 parts sugar to 3 parts dry beans in weight. I’ve experimented with much less sugar, but the minimum amount that seems to make a difference taste-wise is about 150 grams of sugar to 500 grams of pre-cooked weight dry beans. That’s far less than the traditional recipes. Adding some salt with the sugar (about 1 1/2 tsp. for 500 grams dry weight in beans) makes it taste a lot sweeter, paradoxically.

If this is dried out enough to stiffen the puree into a paste, it can be formed into little balls. As a looser puree, it’s interesting to eat with cut up fruit like mango and banana.

Maple syrup can be used instead of white sugar, but this makes for a looser puree because of the higher water content in the syrup. (And I go up to 200 g of maple syrup to 500g of dry-weight beans). This makes the puree taste very maple-y, of course.

I’ve also tried whirring it in a food processor with tofu, to make a thicker version of this tofu pudding. This was moderately successful - the texture improved, but the tofu flavor seemed to totally take over the white beans. Adding some cocoa powder made it into a thick and fairly tasty chocolate pudding though. Adding pureed bananas made it even better.

Savory

White bean paste makes a very nice hummus, following the recipe on this page - though the traditional chickpea base is just as good, if not better.

It does make an interesting thickener for a soup - just add blobs of puree to a vegetable soup base. This could make it interesting for people with gluten problems, and certainly would is a very filling main-meal vegan soup. (Pasta e Fagioli, white beans cooked in a broth with pasta added later, is a classic Italian bean soup.)

I’m still not entirely happy that I have hit on the right combinations though. The experiments continue.