Warm Tofu with Pork-Miso sauce 肉味噌豆腐

Sweet miso sauce with added meat is rather common Japanese sauce. Mark's book has a recipe of simmered daikon ("Furofuki" daikon ふろふき大根) with pork miso sauce (p20), althouhg more traditional "furofuki" daikon (which I posted before) is with just citrus-miso sauce. This time I had a good silken tofu from Kyou-zen-an 京禅庵, I decided make this tofu dish.

First, to warm up the tofu, I made a kelp broth (1x2 rectangle of dried kelp in 3 cups of cold water, when it comes to a simmer, I added 2-3 tbs of sake, 1 tsp of salt and just a drop of soy sauce not to color the broth. Although the kelp is necessary, you do not need any seasoning.  (This is just to warm tofu). Place cubes (about 2x2 inches) of tofu in the broth and simmer to warm (5-10 minutes). Do not boil.

To make the pork-miso sauce, first saute finely chopped scallion (2 tbs), ginger (1/2 tsp),  garlic (one small clove) in 1-2 tsp of vegetable oil. When these are soft and fragrant, add ground or hand-chopped pork (about 4 tbs), stir until the pork is cooked. Add 2 tsp of red miso, 2 tbs of mirin (I did not use sugar). Stir until nice saucy consistency is reached. If it is too thick, add the kelp broth to loosen the sauce. If you prefer the sauce to be bit sweeter add sugar.

Place warm tofu in a bowl, pour over the pork-miso sauce. Garnish with lime zests (I used a micrograter) and a wedge of lime. Squeeze lime juice and enjoy (for silken tofu, even if you are a chopstick jedi, you definitely need a spoon).