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Hiya-yakko – Cool Tofu Scramble Bento
‘Hiya-yakko‘ is a Japanese summer dish: a block of chilled silken tofu, perked up by soy sauce, grated fresh ginger and spring onions on top. I like making it into a bento, with colourful veggies and a sheet of nori in between the tofu/veggie topping and the rice base. Why the nori? By lunchtime, the tofu has released some liquid, which softens the nori which mixes with the other seasonings as you dig in – delicious!
Makes 1 bento. Fridge life: up to 24 hours.
Ingredients
- 75–100g Clearspring Organic Silken Tofu
- 1 portion of cooked rice, or quinoa
- ½ sheet - Clearspring Sushi Nori
- a handful of salad greens, like rocket, watercress or baby spinach
- ¼ avocado, flesh scooped out or sliced
- ¼ pepper, thinly sliced
- 1 ripe tomato, roughly chopped
- 1 cm piece fresh ginger, washed but unpeeled
- 1 tbsp Clearspring Yaemon Tamari Soy Sauce or 1 ½ tbsp Clearspring Shoyu Soya Sauce
- 1 spring onion, finely sliced
- a sprinkle - Clearspring Organic Irigoma - Toasted Whole Sesame Seeds
Method
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Use a leak-proof box. Make a bed of rice, as even as possible, and lay the nori on top. Rip bits off the nori to fit, and include any leftover bits. Place the salad greens, avocado, pepper and tomato on top of the nori, leaving some space for the tofu.
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Drain and discard the liquid from the tofu pack and gently slide out your preferred portion straight on top of the nori. You may need to push down on the tofu with a spoon or your clean hands to break it slightly so you can close the box. Finely grate the ginger over the tofu (using a microplane or box grater) then drizzle the soy sauce over and finish with spring onion and toasted sesame.
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Close your box and pack in a bento bag or furoshiki with a fork or chopsticks.
Variation
Instead of topping the tofu with soy sauce, ginger and spring onion, try my Japanese friend Akki’s topping:
½ tbsp Clearspring Toasted Sesame Oil, a good pinch of flaky sea salt and a small bunch of garlic chives, finely snipped with scissors.
credit: Recipe adapted from Bento Power by Sara Kiyo Popowa (Kyle Books)
Chef
Sara Kiyo Popowa aka Shiso Delicious
Sara Kiyo Popowa aka Shiso Delicious is on a mission to find beauty and sustainability on every level in life: in how we eat and prepare our food, how we view ourselves and our earth and how we choose and dispose of the products we use every day.