Goma dofu (sesame tofu)

Goma dofu stands as a classic of Japanese shojin vegetarian cooking, but it is also on the menus of most fine restaurants. It is made with atari-goma, a paste very similar to tahini — the main flavoring agent in hummus. Atari-goma is ground from sesame seeds that have been roasted, while tahini is generally made from unroasted seeds. In this recipe, however, you may use either for similar results.

You may attempt to grind the sesame in a suribachi yourself, but to get the fine paste takes several hours. When using a ground sesame product, mix the oil in well that has separated and risen to the top before making your measurements.

There are many processed food starches used in Japanese kitchens, the most common is katakuri-ko (potato starch). Kuzu-ko, made from the kudzu vine, is higher quality but more expensive. Either will work, but kuzu-ko yields better results.

Soaking 20 grams of konbu (kelp) in 1 liter of water for three hours or more easily makes konbu dashi, a staple of vegetarian cooking.

100 grams atari goma
75 grams kuzu-ko
600 ml water
300 ml konbu dashi
45 ml sake
1 teaspoon salt uma-dashi* wasabi, freshly grated

1) Place the goma, kuzu-ko, water and dashi in a suribachi and mix well with the surikogi.

2) To completely incorporate and remove any lumps, pass the mixture through a fine sieve (uragoshi) into a clean, dry heavy-bottomed pan.

3) Dissolve the salt in the sake and set aside.

4) Set the pot over a medium flame and stir constantly with a rice paddle, preventing the sesame paste mixture from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

5) When the mixture thickens — after five minutes or so — reduce the heat to low and continue stirring for 20 minutes. This is the 20 minutes that makes or breaks the recipe.

6) Stir in the salted sake and pour the mixture into a shallow cake pan — a 15-cm square pan is ideal — and cool completely by placing the pan in a larger pan and surrounding with ice water.

7) When cool, refrigerate and let the tofu set.

8) Cut and serve with uma-dashi and a dab of freshly grated wasabi. The tofu will keep refrigerated for up to one week. Makes 8-10 servings.

* Uma-dashi

Uma-dashi (literally, delicious stock) may be used on many tofu items and is very good on soft-boiled eggs (yude tamago).

70 ml dashi (shiitake if making vegetarian, katsuobushi if not) 10 ml mirin
5 ml koikuchi shoyu
5 ml usukuchi shoyu

1) Combine ingredients in a pan and bring to the boil.

2) Cool and refrigerate; will keep for one week or more.