is a Japanese

food product Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingest ...

made from twice-fried

soybean The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses. Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu an ...

s. It is produced by cutting

tofu Tofu (), also known as bean curd in English, is a food prepared by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness; it can be ''silken'', ''soft'', ''firm'', ''extra firm'' or ''super firm ...

into thin slices and

deep-frying Deep frying (also referred to as deep fat frying) is a cooking method in which food is submerged in hot fat, traditionally lard but today most commonly oil, as opposed to the shallow oil used in conventional frying done in a frying pan. Normal ...

them first at 110–120 °C, and then again at 180–200 °C. ''Abura-age'' is often used to wrap , and is added to

miso soup is a traditional Japanese soup consisting of a dashi stock into which softened miso paste is mixed. In addition, there are many optional ingredients (various vegetables, tofu, ''abura-age'', etc.) that may be added depending on regional and sea ...

. It is also added to

udon Udon ( or ) is a thick noodle made from wheat flour, used in Japanese cuisine. It is a comfort food for many Japanese people. There are a variety of ways it is prepared and served. Its simplest form is in a hot soup as with a mild broth called ...

noodle dishes, which are called ''kitsune-udon'' because of legends that

fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

es (''

kitsune In Japanese folklore, , are foxes that possess paranormal abilities that increase as they get older and wiser. According to ''yōkai'' folklore, all foxes have the ability to shapeshift into human form. While some folktales speak of employing t ...

'') like deep-fried tofu. ''Abura-age'' can also be stuffed, e.g. with

nattō , spelled as natto in standard English language use, is a traditional Japanese food made from whole soybeans that have been fermented with ''Bacillus subtilis'' var. ''natto''. It is often served as a breakfast food with rice. It is served wit ...

, before frying again. There is a thicker variety known as or . The Japanese were the first to develop tofu pouches. However, little is known of their early history. The ''

Tofu Hyakuchin The is a Japanese recipe book published in 1782 during the Edo period. The author's name is given as Seikyōdōjin Kahitsujun (); it is thought his real name was Sodani Gakusen (1738–1797), a seal-engraver from Osaka. It lists 100 recipes fo ...

'' 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 pouches 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 two 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 a third of the soybeans consumed for tofu in Japan were for deep-fried tofu, and an estimated 85 percent of this was for tofu pouches. In

Japanese mythology Japanese mythology is a collection of traditional stories, folktales, and beliefs that emerged in the islands of the Japanese archipelago. Shinto and Buddhist traditions are the cornerstones of Japanese mythology. The history of thousands of year ...

''abura-age'' is the favorite food of ''

'' and

Inari Inari may refer to: Shinto * Inari Ōkami, a Shinto spirit ** Mount Inari in Japan, site of Fushimi Inari-taisha, the main Shinto shrine to Inari ** Inari Shrine, shrines to the Shinto god Inari * Inari-zushi, a type of sushi Places * Inari, ...

References

* ''Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary'', Kenkyusha Limited, Tokyo 1991, {{Soy, state=collapsed Tofu Japanese cuisine terms Deep fried foods Soy-based foods

See also

References