Aburaage

Abura-age

Atsu-age

Aburaage (油揚げ, abura-age or aburage) is a Japanese food product made from soybeans. It is produced by cutting tofu into thin slices and deep-frying them first at 110–120 °C, and then again at 180–200 °C. Aburaage is often used to wrap inari-zushi (稲荷寿司), and is added to miso soup. It is also added to udon noodle dishes, which are called kitsune-udon because of legends that foxes (kitsune) like deep-fried tofu. Aburaage can also be stuffed, e.g. with nattō, before frying again. There is a thicker variety known as atsu-age (厚揚げ)　or nama-age (生揚げ).

The Japanese were the first to develop tofu pouches. However, little is known of their early history. The Tofu Hyakuchin 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 aburaage is the favorite food of Kitsune and Inari.

References

Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, Kenkyusha Limited, Tokyo 1991, ISBN 4-7674-2015-6

Soy

General	Soy allergy Soy candle Soy ink Soy molasses Soy paint Soy protein Soybean Soybean diseases Soybean meal Soybean oil

Soy-based dishes	List of soy-based foods Aburaage Agedashi tofu Bai ye Douhua Dubu kimchi Edamame Hiyayakko Kongguksu Kongnamul Mapo doufu Miso soup Sundubu jjigae Tahu goreng Tofu skin roll Yong Tau Foo

Plant milk	Soy milk Soy yogurt Vegan cheese

Meat analogues	Beanfeast Tempeh Textured vegetable protein Tofu Tofurkey Vegetarian hot dog Veggie burger

Sauces and condiments	Doenjang Doubanjiang Douchi Fermented bean curd Kinema Miso Nattō Soy sauce Sweet bean sauce Sweet soy sauce Teriyaki Tauco Tương Yellow soybean paste

Various other foods	Mamenori Okara Oncom Soy flour Soy milk based infant formula Soy nut Stinky tofu Tofu skin List of fermented soy products

Companies	8th Continent Alpro Boca Burger Gardenburger Morningstar Farms Plamil Foods Silk So Good Tofutti Turtle Mountain Vitasoy Yeo Hiap Seng

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aburaage.

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, September 16, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.

Aburaage

See also

References