What kind of tofu am I describing, and how do I make it?

May 28, 2007 10:37 AM

What kind of dofu (tofu) did I have at a restaurant (made at our table), and how do I make it at home? Despite their claim, I don't think it was actually yose dofu.

I had gone with some colleagues to a Japanese restaurant (Morimoto's in Philly, to be specific), where we ordered what they called "yose dofu."

Basically, the brought out a bowl of what looked like steaming-hot soymilk, added a liquid (the waiter said it contained magnesium salts), stirred it for a few minutes, and covered it. About 5-10 minutes later, he came back, and the result was a delicious, creamy, smooth, soft to medium firmness tofu.

I looked for recipes for yose dofu, but most of the ones I found implied that you get loose curds and need to press yose dofu. Despite that, I bought nigari (MgCl₂?) at my local Japanese market, and gave it a try: I brought some soymilk to a boil, added some nigari, stirred it, and the end result was basically exactly the same thing the online recipes said; I got tiny curds like one might expect when making paneer.

I'm wondering if anyone can tell me how to make a dofu like the one we got at Morimoto's. Or even what type of dofu it was. Is it some variant on yose dofu? If so, what did I do wrong? Many thanks!

posted by JMOZ to food & drink (14 comments total)

There's a recipe for 寄せ豆腐 (Yosedofu) here.

It describes what you created, but not what you ate at Morimoto. I'll ask my wife what you had - she makes tofu all the time.

And note that tofu is "dofu" in Japanese when "tofu" appears after a vowel - hence yose-dofu. It is pronounced "tofu" in all other situations.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:04 AM on May 28, 2007

When we had the same dish we were admonished not to bother the bowl for 15 minutes, and when the waiter came back, the coagulation hadn't worked.

They had to take it back in the kitchen and redo it, and it only took 5 minutes. I don't know if that's helpful information, but I thought I'd share.

It was unbelievably delicious, btw.
posted by bshort at 11:23 AM on May 28, 2007

When you make "regular tofu," it's like paneer or some other cheese, in that you have to take those curds and drain the water, and the curds fuse together to make a block.

What you're describing sounds like the soft fresh tofu that, in the Chinese style, would be served with a sweet syrup. There's a pretty detailed recipe for this here. This recipe uses calcium sulfate (gypsum, terra alba) and a little bit of cornstarch.
posted by rxrfrx at 11:23 AM on May 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

What you were eating was essentially (I believe), soy milk 'jello' -- that is, soy milk that had been stiffened. This is very similar to Chinese 'dofu hua', which can be served either with a sweet syrup, or with salty garnishes.

There are powdered mixes you can buy at an Asian market.
posted by Comrade_robot at 11:55 AM on May 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

We buy this fresh and still warm from the 168 Market in the San Gabriel Valley, in a cool case near the fish department: one tall lidded carton with the congealed soy milk, topped with a short lidded carton with the ginger syrup and a couple slices of ginger, all wrapped in a plastic bag. It's amazing, cheap, and if anyone's making it at the table anywhere near LA, I want to know about it!
posted by Scram at 1:02 PM on May 28, 2007

Agreeing with the other commenters, sounds like 豆花, which is a chinese dimsum/breakfast food.
posted by mphuie at 1:35 PM on May 28, 2007

豆腐花, that is.
posted by rxrfrx at 2:39 PM on May 28, 2007

I don't understand... I think what you had was yose-dofu, plain and simple. Maybe when you made it yourself, the temperature of the soy milk was too hot. The recipe I use when I feel like making tofu myself says that the ideal temperature is about 70 to 75 ℃ and that if it's too hot, the tofu will be too tough (if it's too lukewarm, on the other hand, the tofu won't coagulate very well). Which would explain what bshort said above; when they took it back into the kitchen, they probably just warmed it up a bit.
posted by misozaki at 5:11 PM on May 28, 2007

First off, thanks to KokuRyu for clearing up dofu vs. tofu. I'm looking forward to what your wife might have to say. Also, thanks to everyone for the suggestions.

misozaki- I'm confused by your comment. If you make yose-dofu at the right temperature, will the whole thing solidify? When I tried making it, I got curds, but they were seperate, tiny solids rather than one large, solidish bowl.

Perhaps rxrfrx, Comrade_robot, and mphuie are right? If so, it's weird they'd call it yose-dofu and tell me the liquid they were adding was magnesium salts.
posted by JMOZ at 5:28 PM on May 28, 2007

misozaki- Also, do you happen to have a recipe for what you make? Does it need to be pressed? It's hard to find recipes in English...
posted by JMOZ at 5:29 PM on May 28, 2007

If you make yose-dofu at the right temperature, will the whole thing solidify?

Hmm. Well, now I'm feeling kind of uncertain... But I think if you use the right amount of soy milk and nigari at the right temperature, pretty much, yes. I'd like to think there was nothing sinister going on at the restaurant you went to, and you weren't being fed mysterious substances!

Why don't you try using the microwave? This site is in Japanese and not the recipe that I use, but it's got photos at the bottom and I think the end product is what you're after: make easy tofu using a microwave. The following translation is mine, and not at all word for word, but the amount (albeit in metric) and the general instructions are correct.

1. I'm Japanese and have lived in Tokyo for most of my life, so I'm not sure what you have to work with over where you are, but use pure, or unadjusted (as in, not sweetened etc.) soy milk when you make tofu. (But I'm sure you already know this!)

2. Put 500 ml of soy milk in a heat-resistant glass bowl. Take 5 ml of all-natural nigari (magnesium chloride) and dilute it with a little bit of water (about 10 ml) and add it to the soy milk, stirring gently. This is to make sure the nigari is completely mixed with the soy milk, and that's why the water is added first.

3. Put a plastic wrap over the bowl, and heat the mixture in a microwave for 5 min (500W). If the mixture is still soft, try heating it up a bit more.

So that's 500 ml of soy milk, mixed with 5 ml of nigari that's diluted with 10 ml of water, heated for 5 min in a 500W microwave. Adjust as necessary. Good luck!
posted by misozaki at 6:33 PM on May 28, 2007

Thanks misozaki!! I will try that and report back for posterity how it works out...
posted by JMOZ at 7:26 PM on May 28, 2007

Nope, same result. I got the same curds/whey mixture I got before. Perhaps the soy milk I'm using has a different amount of water than what is available in Japan?

(For the record, I used a stove, but I use the temperatures and amounts that misozaki suggested)
posted by JMOZ at 1:06 PM on June 3, 2007

Hmm, looking around- that might be it- misozaki- does your soymilk have water added?
posted by JMOZ at 1:19 PM on June 3, 2007