Agedashi Tofu with 3 Types of Radishes

Japanese food, comfort food, vegan, from the windowsill kitchen garden and super tasty! what more can you ask to have on your plate?

I absolutely love this dish, I know it from sophisticated Japanese restaurants, but since going out is not possible at the moment, I wanted to make it myself at home. The authentic recipe includes Japanese ingredients which are more difficult to find, and some are not plant based or vegetarian.

Luckily, the very talented woman behind Liza Panelim, a food blog which I adore, found a good way to simplify the recipe, and I made my version based on hers.

My version takes good advantage of the radishes you can still harvest just before winter, combined with two kinds of colorful Daikon (Japanese radish) sprouts, which give the dish a tasty fresh twist and make it beautiful too.

To make Agedashi Tofu, ideal as a starter dish for 4 persons you will need:

Tofu:

1 pack of firm Tofu (mine was 400 gr.)

Cornstarch

Oil suitable for deep frying

Tsuyu broth:

4 cups of water

2 big shitake mushrooms

¼ cup soy sauce

¼ cup cooking sake (or white wine)

¼ cup mirin

2 tbsp of rice vinegar

1 pack of shimeji mushrooms

Radish topping:

4-6 garden radishes, any kind you have

For each dish, a handful of mixed:

Daikon sprouts

Red Daikon sprouts

Method:

Start by making the broth:

-Quarter the shitake mushrooms, transfer to a small pot together with the water, boil.

-Mix all other wet ingredients (everything but the shimeji mushrooms).

-Add the wet ingredients to the pot and boil.

-After the ingredients in the pot boiled, lower the heat. Clean the shimeji mushrooms, by first cutting their stems short, which will allow them to separate into many small mushrooms. Add to the pot, and let simmer for about 45 minutes until the broth reduces (cook without the lid on). Taste and balance if needed.

Tofu:

-Absorb access water with a clean towel, then cute into 1X1X1 centimeter cubes.

- in a bowl, coat the cubes with cornstarch.

- in a small pot, heat the oil, when warm enough, deep fry the tofu cubes until light golden. This should be ideally done close to eating the dish, so the tofu will remain super crispy. Set aside when done.

Radishes:

-Finely grate clean radishes in a grater.

-Harvest the sprouts by cutting them with scissors.

Assemble the dish:

Serve the broth in individual bowls, top with the crispy tofu cubes, the broth should not cover the tofu completely (see picture). On top of the tofu- add a big tbsp of fresh grated radish, and top with the Daikon sprouts.

Enjoy!

Many thanks to Ilona and Kelvin from TuinZaden.EU for letting me experiment with special seeds, like these Daikon sprouts.