Not Your Grandma's Chowder -- Make it with Tofu
Do it dairy-free, with seafood or go vegan. Hard to go wrong with these 2 New England-ish Chowder recipes.
Hello everyone,
People who aren’t familiar with tofu gravitate toward silken tofu — often putting it in smoothies, tofu chocolate mousse, etc. They seem to want to mask and hide tofu — a bland looking white block. They’re thinking of tofu as a health supplement, not a culinary ingredient.
As with any foodstuff, you have to play around with it to figure out how to use it well. For instance, I grew up with medium-firm block tofu, not silken tofu. When I think of cooking tofu, I rarely buy delicate, custardy silken tofu, which is a translation of kinugoshi tofu (“silk tofu” in Japanese).
That’s changed of late. In my quest to offer you tofu ideas, I woke up one morning with an idea for concocting a New England-style seafood chowder using tofu.
Why mess with a good thing? Well . . . if you’re tofu averse, it’s a way to sneak more wholesome soy into your life. If you’re dairy sensitive like me, it’s an opportunity to enjoy chowder with abandon.
Where did chowder come from?
Chowder’s origin is unclear but some trace it to Native American in the Northeast. Some history on New England Clam Chowder from a charming essay at Thyme Machine Cuisine:
“The soup goes back hundreds of years in New England indigenous tribes. The seafood stew was made with corn and beans and often included the giant, hard-shelled clam that roams the North Atlantic Ocean called quahogs (sounds like co-hogs). . . . The Indigenous people may have created the soup, but they were not the group that gave it its famous name. Around the early 18th century, French and British sailors, fishermen, and settlers in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New England would enjoy a stew similar to what the Tribes were eating. They would add whatever they caught that day, broth or water, and a thick biscuit called shiptack into a chaudière. The word chaudière means a cauldron or pot or as a way of cooking using one of those vessels. Modern etymologists also credit the word 'chowder' to a 16th-century English word for a fishmonger, called a Jowter. Those two words are the basis for the stew name.” — Tricia Cohen
Back to my (and soon, I hope, your) kitchen.
What if I could make a tasty New England-ish chowder with minimal fuss and without milk or cream, using whatever fresh seafood I could find? It may be blasphemous to New Englanders but I’m a Californian refugee immigrant.
I wanted a chowder recipe that was light, dairy-free, smoky and savory. I wanted it to come together with relative ease. I wanted to introduce Asian elements into my chaudière.
After going three rounds, I arrived at today’s two-fer. Whether made with seafood or not, these two are flexible, failsafe recipes.
The recipes spotlight the following:
Tofu can be an MVP beyond breakfast smoothies and traditional Asian dishes.
A tofu’s coagulant can play a pivotal roles in a dish’s outcome.
It’s sometimes good to leave tofu’s moisture intact.
Chowder made with tofu is satisfying but doesn’t weigh you down. (Go ahead and enjoy extra oyster crackers and saltines!)
These recipes are fabulous for a weekday lunch, weeknight dinner or for casual company. I’m not a vegetarian and like them both. Regardless of which chowder recipe you go for, you’ll have a lovely experience.
Given chowder’s Native and European settlers’ history, this Asian tofu iteration fits nicely into that continuum. You’ll be infusing eastern ideas into an American classic. I love these ‘creamy’ and luscious soups, and hope you do too!
Below is more information on the roots of my recipes, plus the recipes themselves and downloadable PDF containing both iterations.
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Hotpot Inspiration
Peeling back the layers of time, my Asian tofu chowder is rooted in a 2010 kaiseki lunch I had at Tokyo Shiba Tofuya Ukai, which serves elegant tofu-centric multi-course meals in a gorgeous park-like setting near the iconic Tokyo Tower.
I was a solo diner but the hostess generously gave me a private room once I explained my cookbook research. Each course was served on delicate dishware, some of which looked museum-ish. I wasn’t expecting such care to be extended to tofu, a humble everyday food. But, I was in Japan, where tofu is celebrated and elevated to the sublime.
Finally, the restaurant’s signature tofu tousui arrived in a donabe ceramic hot pot. It was sublime. I ate up the entire thing, despite having gobbled up all the previous morsels presented to me by my attentive waitperson. The tofu tousui haunted me until I developed a recipe for it in my book, Asian Tofu!
