New York Times Magazine
August 6, 2006
I never thought that I could love a soy product. Admiration I could probably muster, certainly respect. But infatuation? Not a chance. So it came as quite a surprise to find myself sitting in a sliver of a restaurant in Kyoto called Kappo Sakamoto, swooning over a dish of tofu — or tofu skin, to be more precise. Called yuba, it arrived in a handmade wooden box, simmering in water heated by a piece of charcoal. I fished the opaque sheets from the bubbling water and dipped them in a sauce made from soy, dashi, mirin and fresh wasabi. The flavor was mildly sweet and nutty, and the texture was a revelation: simultaneously tender and chewy, unlike anything I had ever experienced.
True confession: I had skimmed over the part about yuba in the guidebooks. To my American mind, tofu meant dull, bland hippie food. Who knew that it had such a sexy and elegant cousin? Clearly my first introduction had been to the wrong family member. I returned to the States determined to find out more about this alluring substance.
It turned out that the son of the chef at Kappo Sakamoto is a partner in Medicine, a San Francisco restaurant that serves, among other things, yuba. In a recent conversation, Ryuta Sakamoto explained that yuba is one of the purest expressions of Kyoto cuisine. It is exquisitely simple, so its magic lies in the quality of the ingredients and the skill with which they’re handled. Know how milk forms a skin when it’s heated? Same idea. Soybeans are processed with water to make soy milk, which is then warmed; the skin that forms on the surface is carefully removed. Each batch of soy milk will yield about seven or eight layers of yuba. The first four or five are the best quality and are sold fresh in wrinkled sheets, each about a foot square, that are usually folded and packaged in a plastic bag. The last two or three sheets are generally dried and shipped to areas where yuba is not produced. Yuba is at its best just after it is made and will only keep for about five days.
Can you try this at home? Yes, but not with supermarket soy milk. The protein content isn’t high enough. So Sakamoto gave me some recipes and directed me to Minh Tsai, the owner of Hodo Soy Beanery, a San Francisco company that makes organic, non genetically-modified soy products. Tsai sells yuba at farmer’s markets around the Bay Area and will also ship in the U.S. I bought some and rushed back to my restaurant to try it. My first attempt at cooking it went something like this: I stuffed yuba with morels and tofu and poached the packages in mushroom stock. The first one tasted great. The second one was even better. I put it on the menu for that night. The large batch for dinner fell apart. I raced to reprint the menus 15 minutes after we opened.
My second attempt ended in a similar fashion. Sakamoto had instructed me to stack sheets of yuba an inch thick or more, press them overnight, cut them into cubes, fry them, rinse them in hot water and braise them in flavorful stock. When I dropped the cubes into the oil, they promptly blew apart. I asked one of my cooks, who had worked with the stuff before, what I had done wrong. He rubbed his chin. “Not enough weight,” he said. “I like to use a 35-pound box of soy oil.” Oh. When I scooped the bits out of the oil and salted them, I discovered one of yuba’s great charms: the lightest, crunchiest, most delicate chips imaginable. And for any remnants of the Atkins crowd out there, they’re all protein and fat.
I returned to see Tsai in the hope that he could steer me toward some techniques that don’t require decades of training in Japanese cooking. His family has supplied the local Asian markets with soy products for years (Chinese and Japanese markets usually stock yuba), but three years ago decided to cross into the mainstream. Now their clientele is mostly non-Asian. And while the yuba sells briskly, Tsai admitted that he is frequently asked, “Cool, but, uh, what do I do with it?” For this he has practical, easy answers. He shared a recipe for the yuba “omelet” that his company sells, though it resembles an omelet only in appearance. Two sheets are folded like letters, stacked and wrapped in a third sheet. The resulting packets are marinated in a sweetened and diluted soy sauce and sautéed, resulting in a crisp, browned exterior and a pleasantly chewy interior. His other ideas are even more appealing: Use the yuba as a wrapper for spring rolls or sushi. Shred it into small pieces and add it to curry soup, as they do in Vietnam. Float torn sheets in broth. Add strips to a stir-fry. Or simply eat them warm in milk, soy or otherwise.
It was the last suggestion that reminded me why I fell for yuba in Kyoto. I cut a sheet into wide strips, simmered them in water and tossed them with milk, olive oil, salt and pepper, which let the subtle flavor and beautiful texture of the yuba shine. As I ate, I felt my heart race, just a little. Surprise.
