About Fried Tofu / Aburaage:

Aburaage (油揚げ abura-age or aburage?) is a Japanese food product made from soybeans. It is produced by cutting tofu into thin slices and deep frying first at 110~120 °C then at 180~200 °C again. Abura-age is often used to wrap inari-zushi (稲荷寿司?), and is added to miso soup. It is also added to udon noodle dishes which are called kitsune-udon because of legends that foxes (kitsune) like deep-fried tofu. Aburaage can also be stuffed e.g. with nattō before frying again. There is a thicker variety known as atsu-age (厚揚げ?)　or nama-age (生揚げ?).
The Japanese were the first to develop tofu pouches. However, little is known of their early history. The Tofu Hyakuchin of 1782 (Abe 1972) gave a recipe for deep-fried tofu, but it is not clear if it puffed up like a tofu pouch. It is known that tofu pouches existed by 1853, when Inari-zushi (tofu pouch filled with vinegared rice) originated (Ichiyama 1968). Because of their long storage life, light weight, and complexity of production, tofu pouches lend themselves to large-scale factory production and widespread distribution. By 1974 large factories were using 2 metric tons of soybeans a day to make 116,600 tofu pouches. By 1980 huge modern factories produced 300,000 to 450,000 pouches a day using conveyorized deep-fryers. At this time roughly one third of the soybeans consumed for tofu in Japan were for deep-fried tofu and an estimated 85% of this was for tofu pouches.
In Japanese mythology abura-age is the favorite food of Kitsune and Inari.

Ingredients:

For black bean sauce:

Fermented Black Beans - 2 tbsp
Garlic - 4 chopped
Ginger - grated 1 tbsp
Chilly hot- 2 with seeds
Rice wine - 1 tbsp
Light Soy sauce - 1 tbsp

Oil / Groundnut oil - 2 tbsp
Fried Tofu - 1 cup diced to quarters
Oyster Mushrooms - 1/4 cup
Fresh Shiitake mushroom - 1/4 cup
Stock - 1/2 cup
Light Soy Sauce - 1 tbsp
CornStarch - 1 tbsp mixed with 3 tbsp of cold water
Enoki Mushroom - 1/4 cup - for garnishing


Method:

To make black bean sauce:


  1. Crush the black beans in  mortar and pestle just to release the flavor.
  2. Add ginger,garlic,chilly and bruise them along with black bean .
  3. Add rice wine,light soy sauce and keep this aside.
  4. Place wok and bring it to smoking hot,add oil then add mushrooms(except enoki).
  5. Then the sauce , stir the tofu then stock and bring up to bubble.
  6. Then mix them well.
  7. Add a tbsp of light soy sauce.
  8. Then cornstarch mix(to thicken the sauce).
  9. Then garnish it with enoki mushrooms.
  10. Then serve hot....