Edamame Dofu

Fridge cleaning made me do it.

If you are the type of human being who heaps a clump of pickled ginger onto your sushi, this will taste like nothing to you, so don’t even bother. If you are a being of taste, read on.

Edamame dofu falls into the branch family of pseudo tofus (or should I say pseudofu), in that they are not made from dried soy beans and a salt coagulant such as nigari (basically sea water brine leftover from salt making, which is very rich in magnesium chloride). This class of tofu-esque semi-solids include the Taiwanese classic huasheng dofu (peanut tofu), Chinese classic shingren dofu (almond tofu), and Japanese classic goma dofu (sesame tofu). This edamame dofu recipe is a riff from the peanut tofu recipe I shared last year.

Edamame Dofu

• 450g shelled fresh or thawed edamame
• 1000ml filtered water
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 8g powdered agar

1. In a blender, blend the edamame with 3 cups of water until as smooth as possible.
2. Pour the mixture through a sieve lined with two layers of cheese cloth (or use a nut milk bag) and squeeze out as much of the liquid as possible.
3. Add enough water so the total volume reaches 1200ml. Add the powdered agar and sea salt to the mixture.
4. Cook the mixture over medium heat, whisking constantly, for about 10 minutes until the mixture comes to a simmer. Continue whisking and simmering for 3 minutes to ensure that the agar dissolves. Do not let the mixture boil.
5. Fill the sink with a couple inches of cold water and set the bottom of the saucepan in the water. Whisk the mixture until it cools and just begins to thicken. Quickly pass a blowtorch over it to get rid of any bubbles on the surface.
6. Immediately pour the mixture into containers lightly greased with vegetable oil. (You can skip the greasing if you don’t plan on turning out the dofu – you can also serve it in a verrine or ramekin.)
7. Chill until set.
8. Serve cold with good wasabi (freshly grated is best, but the kind that’s been grated and packed in a tube isn’t bad either – I wouldn’t go for the neon-green reconstituted versions though), and a drizzle of Taiwanese thick soy sauce