Grating wasabi

Grating wasabi for a refreshing tofu dish. That’s a combination of two interesting textures.

A fresh wasabi root. I’ve simple grated it. That’s very different from the product in the tube. More flavored and less strong.

Okra (gombos). They have a huge jelly strength hidden in them. Like this :

Okra tororo : blanched okra, chilled, pasted in the blender. Flavored to taste with grated wasabi and soy sauce.

You can, for instance, serve okra tororo with soba.

Frozen cotton tofu (momendofu). I froze the whole block in its water. Thawed. Press to push out the water, cut in cubes. As you can see, it has a bread like texture now.

In small cubes.

I’ve poured the tororo on the tofu.

All about mustard, raifort, horseradish, wasabi…

Let’s start with mustard…
Making your mustard is not necessarily economic, but it’s fun and you can customize it. La moutarde au raifort (horseradish mustard) is a fancy Alsacian variation, probably of recent invention for the bobo market. I love bobo food…

I can’t find the black mustard seeds, nor the fresh horseradish.

So this is my moutarde au raifort (horseradish mustard). Yum…. ouuuuchhhh. Refreshing !

le raifort :

The horseradish condiment is something people, well civilized ones, always keep in the fridge in Lorraine. It’s nice to propose this condiment with pot-au-feu or cold meat or smoked fish, or whatever.
But they usually buy it. I can’t get it in Osaka. Or that would cost the moon.

We have karai daikon. Mini daikon with super strength.

Clearing vocabulary confusions.
I. In French this root is sometimes called raifort. And horseradish is called raifort. And no, that’s not the same but close enough.

raifort/horseradish from wikipedia

II. In Japanese, horseradish is called wasabi, but real wasabi is not horseradish and maybe your wasabi is not real wasabi.
Well, there exist hon-wasabi (本わさび, real-wasabi）is Japanese wasabi, an aquatic plant, it is naturally green :

fresh daikon root

And seiyou-wasabi (西洋わさび, Western-wasabi) is horseradish, it’s white, unless they add coloring :

(Letters moved by themselves at reformating… grrr)
The composition of this powder is “horseradish, food coloring, vitamin C”.
The reason is producing wasabi is more costly than producing horseradish, so cheaper products are imitation…
In powder that’s always horseradish. In tube, in Japan, it’s often real wasabi, but in other countries it’s horseradish most of the time. Check the labels.

Conclusion : I have powdered horseradish. Yeah !

So this is my “raifort”, made with a little real horseradish powder, my “mustard” and grated strong daikon.

Kuro-natto, shira-ae. Black beans and white harmony.

Black and white menu. Two Japanese classics.

Natto is cooked soy beans, that are then fermented (originally they were wrapped in rice straw and getting ferment from it, not it’s cultivated like yogurt). Natto is usually brown. This one is make with black soy beans. It’s less strong in taste, more flavorful.

With wasabi. Grated fresh wasabi root.

I put the hot rice on the natto.

Shira-ae, white harmony… White dressing if you prefer. It’s a common type of side-dish.
Basically, it’s silky tofu, mashed, with ground sesame, a little soy sauce, a little sugar. And any kind of veggies you like in it.
You can “dry” the tofu by boiling/nuking it and squeezing in a towel or kitchen paper… or add dashi stock to make it more liquid.
Today, I have powdered a little white sesame in the mortar, added the tofu, a little neri-goma (tahini), very little sugar, soy sauce. And black rice vinegar.
Grated raw carrots, ginger (hidden) and broccoli. Broccoli take and keep the cute color if you plunge them a few seconds in boiling water, then refresh in iced water.