As Andy Warhol once stated in 1968, “in the future,
everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes”. Well, my time in the spotlight
lasted a little more than 15 minutes… it actually lasted for two 30 minute
sessions at the 8th annual Northern California Soy and Tofu Festival.
You may be aware that I also pen a monthly column for the
Nichi Bei Weekly which first started as a daily paper published in Japanese and
English which was created to keep the Japanese American community connected in
Northern California after their release from the internment camps. Some 15
years ago I started writing a monthly food, nutrition and wine column for the
then, Nichi Bei Times and actually increased my columns to bi-monthly for about
a year. However in 2009, the owners decided to close shop due to a declining
circulation and ever increasing costs so Senior Editor Kenji Taguma decided to
rebrand the Nichi Bei Times as a non-profit as the Nichi Bei Foundation with
the continuing mission of keeping the Asian American community connected though
the publication of the Nichi Bei Weekly. Sometime after becoming a non-profit,
he also created the Soy and Tofu
Festival as the annual fundraiser for the Nichi Bei Weekly which included live
entertainment, soy and tofu
education, food vendors and a soy and tofu
dessert recipe contest. Ever since its inception, Kenji has wanted to have me
attend the Festival to judge the dessert contest and also to represent the
Weekly as its resident food columnist. The one issue was it required a flight
to San Francisco which the Nichi Bei Foundation had no budget for. But since
the Mrs and I had our vacation set during the Festival, we decided to finally
attend this year’s Festival.
The Soy and Tofu Dessert Competition
Though it doesn’t sound like competing in any Iron Chef
competition, the challengers do carry quite a bit of credibility. From home
economists to professional bakers, the dessert competition has one simple rule.
All recipes must contain a soy product as one of the top three ingredients by
weight. All semi-finalists must also prepare sixty 1 ounce samples for the audience
and five full samples for the five judges. Usually only three semi-finalists
are selected but this year a fourth semi-finalist was added to the competition:
Eri Combs, a professional baker with her Berry Tofu Cheesecake
Jennifer Hasegawa, an information architect with her Soy
Cream Pan with Kinako Swirl
Kim Guess, a dietician with her Triple Tofu Black Forest Trifle
Akimi Furutani, a creator with her Tofu Big Wave
The judges along with yours truly were Henry Hsu of Hodo
Foods, Linda Harms Okazaki, the Past President of the California Genealogical
Society, Russell Jeung, Asian American Studies Director at San Francisco State
University and Laarnie Bercilla Carlos, chef/owner of Royalicing. Each
semi-finalist took the stage to describe the inspiration for their creation
then we all sampled their creations interspersed with comments from the judging
panel. And since I represented the Nichi Bei Weekly and was the only panelist
who traveled 2500 miles, it seems that the emcees focused primarily on me.
Kim Guess used tofu
in her cake and both the vanilla and chocolate cream and the sour cherry nicely
balanced the rich flavors of the chocolate cake and dual creams. Former winner
and multiple semi-finalist Akimi Furutani created the most visually stunning
dessert mimicking Hokusai’s “Wave” woodblock printing and though I usually am
not a fan of kinako, her cake was
very moist with a pleasant roasted soybean flavor balanced by the rich matcha cream. Jennifer Hasegawa’s soy
cream filled bun had a nice chewy exterior with rich cream filling though the
sugar syrup glaze made it a little difficult to consume especially for
mustached judges and Eri Combs’
cheesecake still had a rich mouthfeel like traditional cheesecake
balanced by both fresh and cooked strawberry flavors but in the end, there
could only be one winner. Both my vote and the final tally gave the crown to
Kim Guess’ Triple Tofu Black Forest
Trifle!
My Cooking
“Demonstration”
I initially proposed creating my Natto Miso Caramel on Natto
Chocolate Rice Pudding to Kenji Taguma though he initially didn’t sound that
enthusiastic about anything natto.
However about 2 weeks before the festival, he asked me about it but he did
mention that he wasn’t sure what cooking device would be available at St Mary’s
Cathedral and that I would have only about 20 to 30 minutes to cook my dish.
Since we were also “on vacation” and this visit to the Bay Area wasn’t strictly
about work, I wanted to bring back wine from Napa Valley instead of simply
shipping back pots, pans and induction cooktops. So I decided on making two
versions of my soy milk custard, a chocolate and a vanilla version.
Therefore I simply packed seventy 3 ounce sample cups
along with simple ingredients that I knew my brother didn’t have in his pantry
– I would purchase the soy milk and fresh fruit once in the Bay Area. Which
almost was a disaster because though San Francisco stores stocked both
chocolate and vanilla soy milk, I almost had to purchase chocolate almond milk
in place of soy milk as the Mill Valley Whole Foods didn’t have any chocolate
soy milk and I finally found the chocolate soy milk at Safeway though only in 8
ounce containers (I needed 64 ounces for the audience samples). And though a
mango sauce would have been perfect with the vanilla soy milk custard, the only
mango in the Bay Area are from Mexico which don’t taste anything like mango
from Hawaii.
For any soy milk custard, the ratio of soy milk to
gelatin is the same, 2 cups of soy milk to 2 teaspoons of powdered gelatin.
Part of attaining that perfect custard texture is to first mix the powdered
gelatin with just a little liquid to create a loose paste before adding it to
the soy milk and to heat it gently unless you’re trying to make flavored tofu but also making sure that the
gelatin totally dissolves in the soy milk.
Vanilla Soy Milk
Custard
2 cups vanilla soy milk
2 teaspoons powdered gelatin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean split lengthwise with seeds scraped out,
just add the vanilla seeds
1 teaspoon light rum
2 tablespoons agave syrup
Diced kiwi fruit, strawberry and blueberries
Chocolate Soy Milk
Custard
2 cups chocolate soy milk
2 teaspoons powdered gelatin
1 teaspoon Kahlua
1 teaspoon Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur)
1 tablespoon dark cocoa powder (I use Valrhona)
2 tablespoons agave syrup
Fresh raspberries
I mix the liquor/vanilla/agave or liquor/cocoa
powder/agave with the gelatin fist form the loose paste then add it to the soy
milk and gently heat over medium heat occasionally whisking until there are no
gelatin granules present. Being able to touch the outside of the pan for a
second or so assures that you aren’t heating it too vigorously. Pour into
serving cups or bowls and refrigerate overnight. Garnish with the fresh fruit.
They also pair nicely with fruit sauces or fruit sorbets.
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