inari sushi | GOURMANDE in OSAKA

Inari is the type of sushi contained in a sweetly soaked pouch of fried tofu. The pronunciation is Zushi in this word, inarizushi.
With season produce, they make a pleasant plant-based lunch.

I told you that so far the rainy season was a dry one, but that’s changing as we are reaching the end : It rains seriously !

I bought this. 油揚げ, abura age. They are slices of tofu, deep-fried.

Cut and they become little bags to contain your sushi.

My rice is a mix of mochigome (sticky rice) and genmai (brown rice) . Flavored with kurosu (black rice vinegar), very little salt and grated carrot.

I rinsed the abura age pouches with hot water to eliminate the excess of oil, then simmered them in a little sweet broth (shoyu soy sauce, kurozato black sugar, chili pepper and laurel). I don’t want mine too sweet.
Toppings : edamame fresh soy beans, fresh sweet corn, sweet green chili, carrot.

Served with kaiware daikon sprouts.

It’s compilation on the tofu topic…

Tofu is soy milk curded with nigari. But some other products not based on soy milk are called tofu because of their texture and appearance.
Tofu ? dofu ? toufu ? doufu ? The only proper spelling is 豆腐. It’s a matter of transcription. The “t” tends to become a “d” in second part of words in Japanese. And in Chinese it’s written “d” and you read “t”. And the “o” is long.

Choosing tofu :

There are huge differences of quality. It can be delicious or absolutely terrible. I wouldn’t want to eat again in this life time all the weirdly packaged tofus I have eaten in Europe and North-America. Maybe I had bad luck. Also in the US, the soy is GMO.

The second thing is you have to buy the right type.
Most Westerners don’t really understand the different types, and I’ve been there too. So maybe this can help. It’s a simplification, but start here :

3 main tofu textures :

You have Japanese tofu that is :
kinu-dofu, silky tofu
momen-dofu, cotton tofu (translated as *firm tofu* in English)
Both are soft and watery. The first is very soft like egg pudding, the second is soft like starch pudding.
Really firm and dry tofu, the one that has a texture closer to meat is popular in China. It’s uncommon in Japan, except in Okinawa, were Japanese and Chinese traditions cross their path. So here it is called 島豆腐 shima tofu, “island tofu“, and in Osaka, I have to buy in “ethnic stores”.
The 3 are made with different recipes.

Bottom line : If you like soft tofu, buy it from a Japanese maker (well, a maker making ingredients for Japanese cuisine as of course it’s not a question of nationality). If you like firm tofu, buy it from a Chinese or an Okinawan maker. Other Asian countries tend to make the firm varieties traditionally.

Gourmande’s home-made tofu :

Basic recipe :
ultra fresh torori tofu (from soy milk and nigari)