Re: sufu [recipe/ideas using tempeh mold starter]

[Guest guest]

Hi Marten,

I'm not able to follow this thread from where I am, but I want to help

you if I can. Traditional sufu is quite salty. It is a very soft product

though, like butter in consistency. It comes in a variety of flavours. I

enjoy sesame oil and chili sufu. When a dish I'm preparing does not

require that specific flavour, then plain sufu is what I use. Sufu is

used to complement a dish, it is not meant to overpower, well, unless

you want a traditional breakfast porridge of cooked rice with sufu

[con-gee], where it is common to use 2 to 3 cubes of sufu per bowl of

rice. Sufu has a strong flavour and aroma, similar to a blue vein

cheese. There is a Japanese sufu on the market here in Adelaide, South

Australia, which has the most offensive aroma, and for me to make such a

claim, is has to be offensive!! It smells just like sewerage, without

exaggerating.

Sufu is traditionally prepared with tofu fermented with a special mold,

and then the molded tofu which is covered with a white mycelium [mold

growth] is stored and aged in salt brine, sometimes with added rice

wine. It can also be flavoured with the addition of sesame seed oil and

chili, or the addition of red fermented rice powder to give it a deep

red colour [Red sufu]. However, red sufu is never as soft as non-red

varieties. Sufu has to ripen in the jar filled with brine for at least 6

months before the tofu is *soft* like butter. This is due to the action

of proteolytic [break down protein] enzymes produced by the initial mold

fermentation.

The traditional molds [ " Mucor racemosus " or " Actinomucor elegansis " ]can

be a little fastidious to work with. However, I have prepared wonderful

sufu with tempeh mold spores [starter]in place of the traditional mold

species.

It's easy to do. Here is something that I may do--

Cut freshly made [or purchased organic] tofu into 3/4 " to 1 " cubes.

Either steam for 15 minutes or boil the tofu for 3 minutes to partially

sterilize. Put the tofu on pre-ironed terry towel and let cool to body

temperature. Put tofu cubes in a clean bowl, and add a little tempeh

mold spore starter-- mix well to inoculate all surfaces of the tofu with

starter.

Pass a shish-kebab skewer through a tofu cube, and keep adding more

cubes about 1/4 " to 1/2 apart on each skewer. Put the skewered cubes in

either a plastic zip-loc bag that is first perforated with a needle

[making holes in a 1/2 " grid fashion with a needle before hand]. Or, put

the skewered tofu in suitable rectangular take-away food plastic

container. First drill holes at the end of the container so that each

skewer end can be put into the holes to hold the tofu away from all

surfaces of the container. With a suitable container, you can put upto

say 3 to 4 skewers so that each tofu cube is about 1/4 " apart from each

other in the container. Put a lid on the container. Important, the

plastic container must also have needle holes peirced throughout all

surfaces including the lid, so that the mold can " breath " just as the

case with the plastic bag method above.

Incubate for 24 to 36 hours at 30C at about 75% to 85% humidity until

each tofu cube is covered with fresh, white mold growth [mycelium]. At

this stage, each cube of tofu may appear like a ball of cotton wool. I

find it preferable to let the mold sporulate just a little [areas of

dark gray or black spores], so that there is high enzyme activity.

Prepare a 10% salt brine. Pack the molded tofu cubes in a glass jar--

packing the jar so that there is little as possible air space between

each cube. Fill the jar with brine to cover the tofu cubes. You can add

some dry chili powder and seal the surface of the brine with sesame seed

oil. You may also include a little sake. Seal jar airtight. Let ripen at

room temperature for at least 6 months.

Sufu should be soft in the centre. I find that tempeh mold gives the

surface of each cube, a slightly firm texture, which gives it an

interesting mouth feel when taking a small bite. Whereas using

traditional mold, the sufu is soft right through, no firm surface. I

think this is due to the mold species. Sufu mold has a very delicate

" root " system [for use of a better mycology term], compared to tempeh

mold. Possibly because tempeh mold has evolved on partially cooked

soybean, which is harder than tofu so it need deeper reaching and a

stronger root system, and sufu mold has evolved on a softer product, so

it does not need to put its roots into tough material to get its nutrients.

In my books, sufu is a " super food " and a little, a very small amount in

fact, goes a long way. It's rich in enzymes and not forgetting the

healthy peptides of sufu. A must for the individual who enjoys cooked

meals, Sufu gives cooked food essential enzymes for easier digestion.

As explained at the web page above, commercial sufu is not pasteurized,

unlike 99.9% miso and soy sauce. The process of pasteurization destroys

the essential enzymes of such culture foods, which is what makes such

culture-foods what they are supposed to be-- enzyme-providing

concentrated foods, especially for the cooked food enthusiast. These

give " life back " to cooked food. Ancient Monks who developed such wonder

foods, certainly KNEW!

My web page on fermented foods of Asia, which includes sufu [and which

was one of the first published web pages on sufu, said with a smile] may

be of some interest to the unaware reader--

http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/koji.html#Su-fu

Be-well,

Dom

On 7/08/2008 12:10:28 AM, artistmama (artistmama@...) wrote:

>

> Hi.

Yesterday i tried the sufu (fermented tofu) i started about a month

ago. It was soft and tasted quite bad (rotten), so i was affraid to

use it. I had fermented in fruit kefir vinegar. Maybe rice wine would

produce a better flavour. Or should i just try to get accustomed to

it? What is it supposed to be like?

Greetings,

Maarten

[Guest guest]

Hi Dom and other list members.

> My web page on fermented foods of Asia, which includes sufu [and

> which was one of the first published web pages on sufu, said with a

> smile] may be of some interest to the unaware reader--

Thanks for your explanations on sufu. The skewer trick will be a

useful idea. First of all, i'd like to thank you for your website,

which is a *great* source of information on various fermented foods. I

also used it as starting point for my first try on sufu making.

My experiment was with a firm tofu (gypsum coagulated), covered with

Rizophus growth, fermented for in vinegar (I didn't use salt and rice

wine; will probably try that.). After one month, i tried a bit and

tossed it for fear it would be bad. It had become very soft with a

rotten flavour.

> Sufu is used to complement a dish, it is not meant to overpower,

> [...] Sufu has a strong flavour and aroma, similar

> to a blue vein cheese.

Yeah. A few days ago, when i needed to be in Amsterdam, i finally

found a jar of sufu (and a packet of red yeast rice! and natto!

(though with preservatives and sugar; i hope the bacterium will still

be able to proliferate)). I couldn't find this (maybe overlooked)

closer to my home.

I can agree that sufu indeed has a strong taste, somewhat like the one

from my experiment :-). But there is a difference: the jar i bought

had a plastic ring on top to keep the sufu submerged in the brine,

while i just tried to fill my fermenting jar to the top, which left

the uppermost pieces in contact with the air. Also, rice wine and

chilli pieces definitely improve the flavour.

Tasting a piece on it's own may be not the right way . As many

people suggested, it is better to mix one piece into a bowl of rice.

I'm sure one can aqcuire the taste this way, and it looks like i'm

even starting to like it already .

> Sufu is traditionally prepared with tofu fermented with a special

> mold

Maybe it's possible to cultivate it from commercial sufu? But for that

it needs to survive the long bacterial fermentation and then compete

with the bacteria when it gets better conditions... But indeed,

Rizophus is just as good.

> However, red sufu is never as soft as non-red varieties.

Any idea why this is so? Different enzymes?

> Sufu has to ripen in the jar filled with brine for at least 6

> months before the tofu is *soft* like butter.

Wow, patience...

Greetings,

Maarten

[Guest guest]

Hi Marten,

I'm happy to keep up with this dialog. I'm also happy to learn how

you've experimented with tempeh-spore-sufu making. I have no experience

with your vinegar sufu recipe, though. But an educated guess lets me

imagine or conclude that the reason for such an offensive aroma [you did

say it as such? or I took it as such] may be due to the proteinaceous

[high protein] nature of tofu. In fact, I recall asking Betty of GEM

cultures why she did not supply sufu starter for sale amongst her other

starter products. Her reply was that it can be problematic fermenting

tofu with mold for a newbie to fermentation, since tofu is a high

protein containing product. I guess she concluded that unwanted

organisms can easily be propagated.

But that made me think about tempeh, natto, and other soy based starters

that Betty was supplying? Why are these OK yet sufu starters were

classed as risky in her books?

OK let me get back on topic to your reply. I think that sufu with added

red fermented rice is not as soft as the non-red yeast rice, probably

due to the enzymes of red fermented rice, or there may be inhibitors in

red yeast rice, that block or retard the action of the proteolytic

enzymes of sufu mold?

And yes, today it is common to find all the sufu kept submerged under

the salt brine in the jar with some type of " follower " device. As you

found, some brands now include some type of styrene-like or nylon

followers, that keep the upper most cubes of sufu submerged. With

traditional sufu, this is now done to avoid those upper most cubes from

turning a dark colour, which may be off putting to a westerner. I state

this because this in only a recent thing that the Chinese have

introduced in their sufu process. This was not done say 20 years ago,

where it was common to find sufu with the top cubes being almost black.

These are OK to consume, but it does no appear nice to the eye of a newbie.

I think tasting a small amount of sufu on its own is the right way to go

about learning how sufu should taste. Well, this is how I first tried it.

I love how one can get a dish to have a subtle taste of sufu, enough to

give it that traditional Chinese food flavour, where it hits the bliss

point factor. If you enjoy experimenting, try combination of soy sauce,

miso and sufu added to the dish just prior serving especially soup types

dishes. Dips, salad dressings and many others dishes can be complimented

with just a little sufu used as part ingredient.

BTW I stated that a Japanese sufu I recently tried has the most horrid

small, I was incorrect. It is a Chinese brand, and a recent new brand to

Australia at least, produced in Beijing. My first assumption was that it

may have been processed with enzymes instead of the traditional molded

method. However, each cube is indeed covered with mold mycelium.

Wow, I just took a sample after some 2 years of this particular jar

sitting in the kitchen cupboard, and guess what, the horrid smell has

markedly settled down! it is actually quite nice! Hmm, this may suggest

that it was sold when it was too young, and aging is the secret in

calming the aroma!

I thought you might want to check out a jar of this particular sufu--

http://users.chariot.net.au/~dna/misc/sufu-beijing3.jpg

Is there anyone here who could translate the Chinese calligraphy on the

lid to English? That would be really neat.

I doubt that mold spores or bacterium of sufu would be alive, to use for

making sufu. I am pretty certain about that. You need to start with

viable sufu mold spores if you want the traditional product. Well, at

least tempeh spore can be used, because sufu spores are hard to come by.

Be-well,

Dom

maartendeprez wrote:

> Hi Dom and other list members.

>

>> My web page on fermented foods of Asia, which includes sufu [and

>> which was one of the first published web pages on sufu, said with a

>> smile] may be of some interest to the unaware reader--

>

> Thanks for your explanations on sufu. The skewer trick will be a

> useful idea. First of all, i'd like to thank you for your website,

> which is a *great* source of information on various fermented foods. I

> also used it as starting point for my first try on sufu making.

>

> My experiment was with a firm tofu (gypsum coagulated), covered with

> Rizophus growth, fermented for in vinegar (I didn't use salt and rice

> wine; will probably try that.). After one month, i tried a bit and

> tossed it for fear it would be bad. It had become very soft with a

> rotten flavour.

>

>

>> Sufu is used to complement a dish, it is not meant to overpower,

>> [...] Sufu has a strong flavour and aroma, similar

>> to a blue vein cheese.

>

> Yeah. A few days ago, when i needed to be in Amsterdam, i finally

> found a jar of sufu (and a packet of red yeast rice! and natto!

> (though with preservatives and sugar; i hope the bacterium will still

> be able to proliferate)). I couldn't find this (maybe overlooked)

> closer to my home.

>

> I can agree that sufu indeed has a strong taste, somewhat like the one

> from my experiment :-). But there is a difference: the jar i bought

> had a plastic ring on top to keep the sufu submerged in the brine,

> while i just tried to fill my fermenting jar to the top, which left

> the uppermost pieces in contact with the air. Also, rice wine and

> chilli pieces definitely improve the flavour.

>

> Tasting a piece on it's own may be not the right way . As many

> people suggested, it is better to mix one piece into a bowl of rice.

> I'm sure one can aqcuire the taste this way, and it looks like i'm

> even starting to like it already .

>

>

>> Sufu is traditionally prepared with tofu fermented with a special

>> mold

>

> Maybe it's possible to cultivate it from commercial sufu? But for that

> it needs to survive the long bacterial fermentation and then compete

> with the bacteria when it gets better conditions... But indeed,

> Rizophus is just as good.

>

>

>> However, red sufu is never as soft as non-red varieties.

>

> Any idea why this is so? Different enzymes?

>

>

>> Sufu has to ripen in the jar filled with brine for at least 6

>> months before the tofu is *soft* like butter.

>

> Wow, patience...

>

>

> Greetings,

> Maarten

[Guest guest]

Hi Dom!

> I have no experience with your vinegar sufu recipe, though. But an

educated guess lets me imagine or conclude that the reason for such an

offensive aroma [you did say it as such? or I took it as such] may be

due to the proteinaceous [high protein] nature of tofu.

I believe the vinegar wasn't acid enough. It was a bit of aged kefir.

And, as i have learned, vinegar can even go sweet; maybe it did during

the fermentation time. I should at least add salt, and rice wine

improves the flavour so much. But indeed, fermenting/rotting proteins

can make an offensive aroma.

> OK let me get back on topic to your reply. I think that sufu with added

> red fermented rice is not as soft as the non-red yeast rice, probably

> due to the enzymes of red fermented rice, or there may be inhibitors in

> red yeast rice, that block or retard the action of the proteolytic

> enzymes of sufu mold?

>

> And yes, today it is common to find all the sufu kept submerged

under the salt brine in the jar with some type of " follower " device.

> [...] This was not done say 20 years ago, where it was common to

find sufu with the top cubes being almost black. These are OK to

consume, but it does no appear nice to the eye of a newbie.

A good reason to do it without the follower ;-) I am all for more colors.

> I think tasting a small amount of sufu on its own is the right way

to go about learning how sufu should taste.

Definitely. One has to know the taste to be able to check the process.

> BTW I stated that a Japanese sufu I recently tried has the most

horrid small, I was incorrect. It is a Chinese brand, and a recent new

brand to Australia at least, produced in Beijing.

> [...] Wow, I just took a sample after some 2 years of this

particular jar sitting in the kitchen cupboard, and guess what, the

horrid smell has markedly settled down! it is actually quite nice!

Hmm, this may suggest that it was sold when it was too young, and

aging is the secret in calming the aroma!

Sounds great!

> I thought you might want to check out a jar of this particular

sufu-- http://users.chariot.net.au/~dna/misc/sufu-beijing3.jpg

I'll look for it, but i doubt if i'll find it. In fact, i'm glad i can

get any sufu at all.

> Is there anyone here who could translate the Chinese calligraphy on

the lid to English? That would be really neat.

Not knowing Chinese at all, i tried looking up the characters. There's

a nice website at http://www.nciku.com/, that lets you draw a

character, and it will try to recognize it. Here's what i found so

far, better educated people please correct:

& #20013; [zh & #333;ng] China

& #21326; [huá] magnificent

& #32769; [l & #462;o] old

& #20140; [j & #299;ng] Beijing

> I doubt that mold spores or bacterium of sufu would be alive, to use

for making sufu. I am pretty certain about that. You need to start

with viable sufu mold spores if you want the traditional product.

Well, at least tempeh spore can be used, because sufu spores are hard

to come by.

Hey, Chinese people on this list: someone could get these spores?

Greetings,

Maarten