This was part two of this month’s Washoku Warrior challenge. The first part was Saikyou Yaki (Miso-Marinated Broiled Fish). Oh so many things went wrong with this recipe.

I made the sauce (shira ae) first. I think I squeezed too much water out of the tofu, and I used firm tofu. For this sauce I should have used a silkier tofu and I should have used a food processor. I thought that this yet another time that I could get away with using a blender instead, but it didn’t work. I tried adding in more liquid and the sauce was still very dry, like a dough.

I also chose to use instant dashi granules instead of homemade dashi stock, but for some reason the container does not have any instructions on how to create the stock using the granules. I used about a teaspoon for a 1/2 cup, which is double the amount I was supposed to use (apparently?).

Even though there were a lot of components to the dish that made it take much longer to make than I thought it would, I loved the complexity the final dish’s flavor had. It was sweet, salty; light and rich. All at the same time. It’s not pretty to look at, but now that I’ve made it I’ll be including it in every bento for this week and eating it whenever I can.