Japanese Agedashi Tofu (揚げ出し豆腐)

This delightful number combines crispy tofu with aromatic dashi broth and an assortment of flavourful toppings. A quick, comforting yet refreshing dish to relish during the winter.

This dish is an excellent introduction into core elements of Japanese cuisine. If you were born yesterday and had never encountered Japanese food before, this would be the dish that I’d show you first. Crispy fried tofu is combined with a light, aromatic dashi broth that hums lightly of the sea. The broth is spooned over the crispy tofu, which absorbs the salty, umami flavours and is topped with a high-impact, flavourful assortment of toppings. An interesting quirk with the broth is the use of white soy sauce. Yes, white soy sauce is indeed a thing. It hasn’t gained much traction outside of Japan, yet offers a totally different umami reflex to the regular black shoyu we’re used to. This clear, delicate dish is the best way to appreciate it. The savoury, yeasty and almost cheesy notes of white soy sauce give you a different angle on Japanese cuisine, and thank god, you can buy it online now [BEST BUY]. The dashi broth base for this recipe can be made with powdered dashi - dashi-no-moto - available at most Asian supermarkets or world foods aisles, but I do have a recipe to make it from scratch in just 5 minutes [GET THE RECIPE]. Either way, ‘agedashi tofu’ is a wonderful, comforting dish to eat in the winter and its also brilliantly light and fast to make. Allow me to guide you into this one - and it could just become your new winter weeknight staple. Let’s go!