Bean Curd Salad (from Din Tai Fung)

Today, we're making Din Tai Fung's amazing, amazing oriental salad. This is a transcript of the recipe from 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yagFE5FYdWc&t=1s&ab_channel=W2KITCHEN

So, today, in terms of salad ingredients,

• Bean sprouts

• kombu, dried kelp

• bean vermicelli.If you struggle to find bean vermicelli, you can use rice vermicelli. They break apart slightly easier but it's OK

• Paper tofu  - probably the hardest one to track down. As described, it's like paper, and it's made of tofu.

Once you have everything, the whole thing cooks within minutes.

So, first, we soften the kelp. Just like you would if you were to make a kelp dashi. Cover with water. Don't rinse the kombu beforehand, yeah? The white powder, that's crystallised monosodium glutamate. Nature's MSG, full and full of umami. And of course, we're going to cook all our ingredients, or par-cook at least, all our ingredients with the kombu dashi to reinforce the amazing umami. So, bring this to a bare simmer. The only difference between this and making a kombu dashi is, we’re solving for the texture of the kombu not the flavours of the dashi. Once we've brought it to a simmer, we want to give it time to soak to make sure it has the desirable texture.

Take a separate bowl to soak our bean vermicelli. This doesn't look like a lot, but it will almost double in volume once it's fully rehydrated. So, boiling water, and just cover the whole thing. Depends on the instruction on the packaging, but about five minutes.

While that's going on, we prep the rest of our ingredients. We have some bean sprouts, which I've rinsed under cold running water. It's very important to rinse them to get rid of the unwanted sliminess. So, this is ready for blanching.

And, last but not least, we have the hard to track down tofu skin. We simply slice into similar sized strips as the bean sprouts. About half a centimetre, if you want to be precise. I always think precision and salad recipes do not belong in the same sentence, but that's just me. And because this is a salad dish, not a noodle dish, I like to cut them into more bite-sized pieces. Just for the ease of eating. So, similar length to the bean sprouts. That's the lazy way. So, once we've reached a bare simmer, about 80 degrees Celsius, we switch off the stove. And we let it soak until we've reached the desired texture. It's hard to have a precise time, given the different thickness and dryness of the kombu. But it's about five minutes. Then you touch to check on the texture. If it's too firm, give it another five minutes. Then we're ready to cook. I'll see you in a tiny bit.

Now, once this is good to go, we take out the kombu. Once again, similar sized to the paper tofu. Now, to minimise the washing, we grab our salad mixing bowl and we have a sieve on top. Kombu goes in. We bring our kelp dashi back to a boil. This is a wonderful way to have zero waste. Utilising all the flavours the kombu imparts. Once we're boiling, bean sprouts in. This is probably the most difficult part, cooking-wise. Because you want the bean sprouts to be soft enough to be bendy and integrate into the salad. But you want the bean sprouts to remain crunchy to provide the contrasting texture. So, for me, the rule is, if you're shaking it, once it starts to bend a tiny bit with your movement, I take them out and I'm not running it under cold water. I let the residual heat bring it to the right texture. Still, is it bendy? Not yet. So, a bit more. Now, as you can see, it starts bending with my movement. So, they come out. Probably added a bit too much bean sprouts. It's okay, I like bean sprouts. To be honest, the beans, they're not the tasty bits. You can get rid of them if you want.

Now, back to a boil. And bean vermicelli goes in next. We're doing it in this order for a reason. Because the paper tofu will impart a lot of unwanted oil to this cooking liquid, making it less desirable for the rest. Transfer from one liquid bowl to the other. And like I said, because this is a salad, not a noodle dish, I like to cut them to make them a bit more bite-sized. Because this has been soaked in hot water for more than five minutes, this is cooked, we just want to impart some umami. So this comes out.

Again, a bit more residual heat for the bean sprouts to soften. And lastly, the paper tofu. Tofu is by definition cooked. We're just blanching it. A, to remove the excess oil. B, to soften it a bit. And that's it. Stove off.

Oh, that's perfect. Now, to finish the dish, simply drain everything once more. Because the more liquid you remove here, the easier they become to cling on to the salad dressing. And this is a very watery dressing. We drain off the excess liquid. Everything's in the bowl. We're DTF.

So, for the wet ingredients:

 First up, we have the white rice vinegar, which is what DTF uses, in London at least. This is basically similar to a ponzu sauce. So you're essentially mixing acidity with soy sauce. So if you can't find white rice vinegar, don't sweat over it. Use dark vinegar. Use balsamic. Use lemon juice. I definitely wouldn't go shopping just for this salad.

Next up, light soy sauce. I like to go a one-to-three ratio, meaning one part vinegar, three part soy sauce. But again, for a salad recipe, I think it's ridiculous to give measurements. You should taste and adjust to your liking. If you like it a bit more acidic, add more vinegar. If you like it a bit more savoury, soy sauce. So a touch more.

Now to take this to the next level, we have vegetarian chilli oil. You can use any chilli oil for this dish. One key to using chilli oil in general for me is you have to take the solid with the oil. This is where the flavours are. I like it spicy, so pretty generous. Mix, mix, mix.

And last but not least, toasted sesame oil. It has to be toasted to give you that distinct flavour. Regular sesame oil is more of a cooking oil. But this thing is very overpowering. So again, taste, but I would start with just a few drops. Beautiful. Let's plate one, shall we? That was horrible. [laughs] And just like at DTF, where they built a ginormous tower on a flat plate, I'm going to make this tall. Perfect. And that's it! One of my favourite salads in the world. This is Din Tai Fung's Oriental Salad. I really hope you enjoy.