Now let me describe more about Asparagus kuzu which I served at the Greenmarket Panel Discussion. After moving to America I found the price of high quality Japanese sesame paste is expensive (and only available at Japanese food stores) that I was preparing less and less traditional Gomadofu. Meanwhile I tried making it with easily available and economical Tahini and Chinese sesame paste, but both produced very disappointing results in my Gomadofu from the point of color, flavor and texture. I also used easily available nut butters such as cashew and almond to make Gomadofu. The use of these new flavor nut butter happily expanded my traditional notion of Gomadofu.
Then, one day when I was at the greenmarket standing in front of just harvested asparagus, I thought of making the vegetable version of Gomadofu – without nut butter. After several trials I produced a satisfactory recipe. Today I use carrot, green peas, fava beans, parsnip, tomato and other seasonal vegetables to make seasonal vegetable Gomadofu. Here is what you need to make Asparagus kuzudofu.
1 cup kelp stock
1 cup milk
7 ounce asparagus
40g kuzu
Salt totaste
Cook the asparagus in salt added boiling water until just tender. Drain the asparagus and process it with milk in the juicer-mixer until pureed. Mix the kuzu and kelp stock in a bowl and strain through a fine sieve. Transfer the kuzu-stock mixture and asparagus-milk to a medium pot and cook over moderately high heat until the kuzu starts to get thicken. Turn the heat to very low and cook, stirring, for 30 minutes. Transfer the asparagus mixture to a mold and refrigerate overnight. Next day remove the asparagus kuzu from the mold and cut it into bite sized pieces – about 2 1/2 inch square. Serve with the sauce.
