April 9, 2009
Eat to live
Tofu delight
This Japanese grilled tofu not only looks appetising but is also full of flavour, says SYLVIA TAN
Tofu is a larder staple in a healthy kitchen but it is often its own worst advertisement among the less health conscious. That is because it looks and tastes bland, being made from nothing more than soya beans.
Tofu dengaku, a Japanese dish, dispels such notions.
It is not only robustly flavoured but it also looks appetising with a slightly burnt finish, giving a new face to tofu indeed.
It is grilled tofu and yet it is not dried out by the heat. The tofu slices are topped with a flavoured miso paste which is seared to give it an attractive finish.
You can order this dish in most Japanese restaurants but, really, it is so easy, it should be made at home more often. You can eat it on its own or with a green salad if you want to make a meal of it.
I had forgotten what a great dish it is until I ate it again recently. I then reproduced it at home with my own miso toppings. This can be truly fun, for you can add whatever flavouring you like to the paste.
I used white miso paste, also made from soya beans, because it is milder than the dark or red miso paste. It is also the easiest to find in supermarkets.
I then added sweet plum sauce, lemon juice, hoisin sauce, red wine lees (sediment from wine fermentation) and green tea powder to the basic paste to flavour it.
If you are experimenting with other toppings, just remember to add a bit of sugar and some wine to the mix to thin it down and to help with the caramelisation.
I tried to keep to a theme when concocting the following three toppings: Basic Japanese with a bit of lemon juice and sake; Chinese-inspired with hoisin sauce, sesame oil and rice wine; and plum sauce and plum wine.
Plum wine incidentally is something which the Japanese love as a cocktail, with lots of soda water and ice. You will find whole plums in the bottle which you can use as a garnish at the end.
Finally, there is no fuss at all with the cooking. You merely place the tofu slices, with their various toppings, on an oiled baking tray and roast it.
The attractive seared finish is achieved with the help of a kitchen torch, which delivers quite a dramatic flourish if you do it at the table.
You can use either tofu, the soft bean cake of various degrees of softness, the Chinese tofu being the most firm, or tau kwa. The latter is the compressed tofu cake with a firm texture. Choose the cake that you feel most confident handling.
If you still need more incentive to cook this at home, the health benefits of this dish are quite tremendous. Both tofu and miso are rich in high-quality protein and are also good sources of B-vitamins and iron. When I eat it though, all I am thinking is: How delicious this is, even if it is made just from beans.
Sylvia Tan is a freelance writer
RECIPE
TOFU DENGAKU
(Serves 4-8)
4 pieces of Chinese tofu or taukwa (firm soya bean cake)
Plain miso topping:
2 tbs white miso paste
1 tsp sake
Juice from half a lemon
1 tsp white sugar or according to taste
Garnish with slivers of lemon rind
Plum-flavoured miso topping:
2 tbs white miso paste
1 tsp plum wine
1 tsp bottled Chinese plum sauce
Garnish with slivers of pickled plum from the plum wine
Chinese-flavoured miso topping:
2 tbs white miso paste
1 tsp hoisin sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp rice wine
Garnish with roasted white sesame seeds
Method:
Place a chopping board on tofu cakes (inset) and leave overnight in the fridge to allow water to drain out.
The next day, drain off the collected water and slice each cake into six pieces.
Top the 24 slices with the flavoured miso paste (eight slices for each topping).
Spray oven tray with oil. Roast in oven at 150 deg C for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and use a kitchen torch to toast the bean topping. You can also pierce each slice with two bamboo skewers for easier handling at the table.
Garnish with lemon slivers, plum shreds or sesame seeds depending on the topping.
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