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Chef Caroline Ishii created a spicy Korean-inspired tofu and sweet potato noodles stir fry recipe for Soyarie, an organic tofu supplier in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Photo credit: Soyarie.

OTTAWA — I’ve had a love-hate relationship with tofu.

Growing up, one of my favourite ways of eating fresh tofu was cold with grated ginger, green onion slivers, katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes), and shoyu. Called hiyayakko, it’s still one of my go-to dishes on hot, humid summer days. It’s easy to prepare, and its cool creamy texture with vibrant bursts of flavour is refreshing and delicious.

I’ve never understood the firm, dense tofu that started appearing in supermarkets and crossed into the mainstream in the 1970s, often on vegetarian restaurant offerings. I would often find this tofu dense, pasty, and tasteless.

This tofu became one of the foods that represented vegetarian food for many, and why people equated veg food as hippish, boring, and healthy-tasting—which is not a good trait when you sacrifice taste and beauty for it being good for you.

When I went to the Natural Gourmet, a chef school focusing on plant-based whole foods in New York City, we often did not cook with tofu. Instead, we would concentrate on whole-food proteins like lentils, beans, and tempeh.

One of my teachers at the school used to be the personal chef for the comedian Jerry Seinfeld. He wasn’t vegetarian, and I asked him why he wanted to teach in a primarily plant-based school. He said it’s easy to make meat and fish taste good, but making beans taste delicious is an art form. His words stayed with me. And I recognized what he said was true. So much of the veg food I was seeing and tasting in those days looked and tasted brown, mushy, and unappealing.

Before going to Natural Gourmet, I asked my friend Alfredo for restaurant recommendations for a trip to San Francisco. He said, you’ve got to go to Millennium. It’s fantastic, and by the way, it is vegan.

I loved the beautiful fine-dining ambiance at Millennium and was blown away by Chef Eric’s creativity and talents with vegan whole foods, bringing it to the highest levels of appearance and taste I never knew was possible with veg food. And I loved his philosophy of supporting local farmers and the community. This experience influenced me to go to the Natural Gourmet, where Chef Eric studied, and to train at his San Francisco restaurant.

When I returned to Ottawa from chef school and my internships, I wanted to start cooking food for people that was beautiful, delicious, healthy, and vegan. So, I started with monthly pop-up dinners that led to opening my restaurant ZenKitchen in Ottawa, the first vegan fine dining restaurant in Canada.

Chef Caroline Ishii created a spicy Korean-inspired tofu and sweet potato noodles stir fry recipe for Soyarie, an organic tofu supplier in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Photo credit: Soyarie.

With ZenKitchen, I wanted to change people’s minds about veg food as being boring and bland. And for people to come to the restaurant first and foremost because the food was beautiful and delicious—even sexy. The fact that the food was vegan and good for you and the planet would be secondary. And I was reluctant to serve tofu.

When I opened ZenKitchen in 2007, many people didn’t even know how to pronounce vegan, often saying “vay-gan,” and related it to a cult-type food that was the staple of hippies living in communes. When I went to get funding for my restaurant, the banks said that plant-based foods were a trendy fad that would never fly. Of course, they were wrong, and I was right, but they had the money.

Before I opened the restaurant, I went to Japan to train in my friend Yuki’s vegan restaurant. She was from Tokyo and had studied with me at the Natural Gourmet. Working at her restaurant and through my daily meanderings, I often found tofu shops with various kinds of fresh tofu displayed like fresh cheese stalls in France. I was amazed by the different types of tofu in varying textures and forms, from extra soft, pudding-like silky soft cubes to the firmer tofu in blocks, which were not tasteless.

In Japan, tofu is part of people’s daily lives. Preparations of ready-made tofu in different forms for home cooks and restaurants are endless. Raw, boiled, freeze-dried,, and fried tofu are used in various applications such as dressings, soups, and hot pots, grilled or served untouched. This is how I fell in love with tofu again. She was beautiful, complex, and delicious!

I brought those food memories from Japan to my restaurant, where the only tofu I served was atsuage, a soft tofu with a deep-fried outer shell. Made fresh weekly from the Ottawa-Gatineau organic tofu supplier Soyarie, the atsuage tofu came in cubes, which we would skewer, glaze, and grill over hot charcoals. Customers and staff fell in love with it.

Soyarie recently asked me to develop recipes for their agedashi product. I was excited to do so. I’m sharing a Korean-inspired stir fry with a spicy barbecue sauce that is easy to prepare and delicious.

For the tofu in the recipe, in Japanese and Asian supermarkets, look for agedashi tofu. Soyarie is the best organic tofu supplier in the Ottawa-Gatineau region and sells its products in numerous locations in Ontario. Its agedashi product comes in blocks that you need to cut into cubes. The Chinese fried tofu cubes you usually find in Asian stores, which are lighter with little tofu, may not work as well but will be fine. You can also use the firm tofu found in most supermarkets.

I recommend making a batch of the sauce and keeping it in the fridge as it lasts for weeks. Then, you can use it on tofu, other proteins, and vegetables. It’s also delicious in a sandwich. I’m sure you’ll find many other uses!

Chef Caroline Ishii created a spicy Korean-inspired tofu and sweet potato noodles stir fry recipe for Soyarie, an organic tofu supplier in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Photo credit: Soyarie.

Spicy Korean tofu and sweet potato noodles stir fry (vegan)
(Find the recipe on Soyarie’s website here)
Serves four people

Ingredients:

1 package Soyarie Atsuage tofu (340 grams)
1 green onion, thinly sliced
1 red pepper, julienned
1 cup snow peas
1 bok choy, trimmed
1 package of Korean sweet potato noodles
1 tablespoon olive or canola oil
1 tablespoon sesame seeds

Barbecue sauce:

1/3 cup white miso
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup gochugaru (Korean dried chilli flakes)
1/4 cup soy sauce
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup or more water

Directions:

1. Drain the liquid from the tofu package. Cut the tofu into cubes or triangles.

2. Prepare the vegetables: green onion, red pepper, snow peas, bok choy

3. Combine the barbecue sauce ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Add more water to make the sauce thinner as desired.

4. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the noodles and boil for 6 to 7 minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water to cool down.

5. Heat a large pan to medium heat. Add the oil.

6. Braise the tofu on both sides until there is some colour, a few minutes on each side

7. Add the vegetables and sauté with the tofu for a few minutes.

8. Add the noodles and combine with the rest. Turn off the heat.

9. Add a few tablespoons of the barbecue sauce, or more, depending on your heat preference, and combine with everything. Garnish with sesame seeds.

Enjoy!

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THIS ARTICLE WAS REPRINTED FROM NIKKEI VOICE’S JUNE 2023 ISSUE. 

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