miso soup

Simple miso soup with chicken stock in lieu of dashi makes for a very satisfying dinner on a cold day.

Gōyā chanpurū, again

Another version of gōyā chanpurū. I do love these bitter melons.


I sautéed pork belly and set it aside, then the bitter melon (until browned), and then scrambled an egg in sesame oil. I then sautéed the tofu, adding the melon and pork. This was then assembled with the egg on the side, drizzled with shoyu and sesame oil. Finish with Japanese Seven Spice powder (shichimi togarashi).

bitter melon

Above is a bitter melon that I purchased on a whim at the farmer's market. The most basic way too cook one seemed the Okinawan stir-fry gōyā chanpurū (it made sense to keep it simple to highlight its flavor).

Cutting the melon open, it has a spongy core and hard seeds that look like pumpkin seeds embedded therein. It smelled like a random plant that you pull up, smell and remember why only certain plants are edible. A strong, fresh, chlorophyll smell. I scraped out the spongy center. It tasted incredibly bitter, very green.

I salted the sliced bitter melon and then washed it a few times. I sautéed them in hot oil and then added tofu, mirin and shoyu. It remained firm and crunchy despite being cooked well, thus muting the bitterness. The pressed tofu was a rich foil for the bitter vegetable. Very very good.

making tofu

I bought gypsum for my ale making venture and googled it to see what culianry uses it may have other than making water hard for brewing purposes. It's also a coagulant that can be used for tofu (nigari is more common/traditional). Using Just Hungry's recipes for soy milk and then for tofu, I had even more success than I had expected. It came out very firm, much like the Japanese tofu that I'd get at the Rainbow Co-op bulk section when I lived in SF. (Lately I've been getting the "AFC" pressed bean curd at local Asian markets -- It's halfway between that and supermarket "firm" tofu).

It starts off with boiling puréed, soaked soy beans:


After twenty minutes, it gets strained and is soymilk!


That is heated back up to 175ºF, and the coagulant (gypsum or magnesium cloride [nigari]) is added. It sits for fifteen minutes. I then added a bit more gypsum for good measure. And it is strained:


It gets shaped (in that towel, just in a colander in this case), and voilà: