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
- In a blender, blend the edamame with 3 cups of water until as smooth as possible.
- 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.
- Add enough water so the total volume reaches 1200ml. Add the powdered agar and sea salt to the mixture.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.)
- Chill until set.
- 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