Green Beans with Tofu Dressing (Shira-ae)

Green Beans with Tofu Dressing (Shira-ae) is a simple vegetarian side dish.  The tofu-based dressing has a very gentle flavour and goes well with blanched green beans with some carrot to give a bright colour to the dish.

Tofu is a versatile ingredient. It can be eaten fresh, boiled, in miso soup or clear soup, simmered with other vegetables, or stir fried. Here are some of the tofu recipes that I posted already.

Yodufu (Tofu hot pot)
Tofu with Vegetable Sauce
Mābōdōfu (Mapo Tofu)
Japanese Fried Tofu (Agedashi Tofu)
Scrambled Tofu (Iri Dofu)
Kanazawa-style Simmered Chicken and Tofu

Today’s recipe is a Japanese dressing made with tofu which is called Shira-ae (白和え). When I posted Broccolini Karashi-ae (Mustard Dressing), I talked about aemono, which means foods that are dressed or seasoned. I listed all kinds of aemono dishes and shira-ae was one of them.

The name of today’s dish shira-ae comes from the colour of the tofu dressing. The colour white is shiro (白) in Japanese and when combined with other word, ‘ae’ in this case, it changes the sound to shira.

What’s in Tofu Dressing

Tofu itself does not have sufficient flavour to dress vegetables but when mixed with roasted white sesame seeds, sugar, miso, light soy sauce and salt, it becomes a delicately flavoured but thick white dressing that matches perfectly with blanched green beans.

For 200g of tofu, you need 1½ tablespoons of roasted white sesame seeds, just over 1 tablespoon of sugar, ½ tablespoon each of miso and light soy sauce and tiny amount of salt.

Consistency of Tofu Dressing

When you Google search ‘shira-ae’ and look at the images, you notice that some dishes are dressed in rather dry tofu dressings that almost look like scrambled tofu. But some of them have slightly watery dressings.

The consistency of my tofu dressing is slightly watery and I believe this is the right consistency of the traditional shira-ae in Japan.

I use firm tofu (also called momen tofu) to make tofu dressing. Firstly, the water contained in the tofu needs to be extracted by wrapping the tofu in a couple of sheets of kitchen paper and putting a plate on it. The weight of the plate pushes the water out.

This process is necessary to prevent the dressing from becoming too watery. Leave it for about 20-30 minutes and you are ready to make a dressing.

The easiest way to make tofu dressing is to add all the ingredients to a food processor and whiz it until it becomes a loose yoghurt-like consistency with very small tofu lumps. A stick blender is also good for this.

I used a mortar and pestle because my son borrowed my food processor and stick blender and they are still with him. It took me a while to remove the large tofu lumps and produce the smooth consistency of the tofu dressing, but it worked fine.

Vegetables suitable for Shira-ae

I used green beans and a small amount of julienned carrot in my recipe to give a bright colour to the dish. Blanch green beans and cut them to about 5cm long. Julienned carrot pieces are softened with a small amount of salt.

But the most commonly used vegetable among the shira-ae dishes is spinach. Blanch spinach leaves and cut them to 5cm long. Because the dressing is white, I think that green leaves work the best.

Mushrooms such as shiitake mushrooms and shimeji mushrooms are also often used, especially together with spinach.

Shira-ae is a delicate vegetarian dish. It is often served in Kaiseki Ryori (a traditional Japanese multi course dinner) and you can make it quite easily.

Yumiko

P.S. Don’t forget to see the section ‘MEAL IDEAS’ below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and the new recipe in this post that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.

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Green Beans with Tofu Dressing (Shira-ae)

Prep Time

25 mins

Cook Time

5 mins

Total Time

30 mins

 

Green Beans with Tofu Dressing (Shira-ae) is a simple vegetarian side dish. The tofu-based dressing has a very gentle flavour and goes well with blanched green beans with some carrot to give a bright colour to the dish.

Note: Prep time includes the time to extract water out of the tofu. Actual working time is much less.

Recipe Type: Salad, Sides

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: dressing, tofu, vegetarian

Serves: 4 as side, 2 as salad

Author: Yumiko

Ingredients

• 50g/1.8oz carrot
• 120g/4.2oz green beans
• 2 pinches of salt

Tofu Dressing

• 1½ tbsp (12g) roasted white sesame seeds
• 200g/0.4lb firm/momen tofu (note 1)
• 1 tbsp + ½ tsp sugar
• 1½ tsp miso
• 1½ tsp light soy sauce
• 1/8 tsp salt

Instructions

1. Wrap the tofu in a couple of sheets of kitchen papers and place it on a cutting board. Place a plate on the top as a weight and leave it for 20-30 minutes.

2. In the meantime, cut the carrot into 4-5cm long thin matchsticks. Sprinkle a pinch of salt over the carrot sticks and leave for 10 minutes. Squeeze them to get moisture out.

3. Boil water in a saucepan with a pinch of salt and blanch green beans for a minute or two. Transfer the beans to a bowl of cold water to cool them down quickly.

4. Trim both ends off the beans and cut each bean diagonally into 5cm long pieces.

5. Grind the sesame seeds in a mortar and pestle until most seeds are ground.

6. Remove the kitchen paper from the tofu, and place the tofu into the mortar, breaking it into small pieces (note 2).

7. Pound the tofu using a pestle until the tofu becomes smooth without large chunks of tofu pieces. The consistency is like loose yoghurt.

8. Add the remaining Tofu Dressing ingredients to the mortar and mix well.
9. Add the beans and the carrots to the tofu dressing and mix well.

10. Serve in 4 small individual bowls as a side or in 1-2 plates/bowls as a salad.

Recipe Notes

1. It is best to use firm tofu (momen tofu) to make a tofu dressing. If you can only find silken tofu, you will need to extract the water much more by wrapping the tofu in kitchen paper and squeezing the water out.

Hard tofu is not suited to this dish.

2. Prior to placing the tofu into the mortar, you can put the tofu through a sieve if you want so that the time taken to make a smooth tofu mixture is reduced.

3. Nutrition per serving as a side.

serving: 108g calories: 115kcal fat: 6.3g (10%) saturated fat: 1g (5%) trans fat: 0g polyunsaturated fat: 2.9g monounsaturated fat: 2g cholesterol: 0mg (0%) sodium: 365mg (15%) potassium: 215mg (6%) carbohydrates: 10g (3%) dietary fibre: 2.8g (11%) sugar: 5.7g protein: 7.3g vitamin a: 46% vitamin c: 7.3% calcium: 18% iron: 14%