KO EN Japanese Appetizer⏱ 65 minEdit history

Dengaku (Skewered Tofu Under a Miso Glaze, Blistered Over Coals)

Name: Dengaku (Skewered Tofu Under a Miso Glaze, Blistered Over Coals)
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 1 h 5 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients: 600 g firm tofu; 16 bamboo skewers; 100 g red miso; 60 g sugar; 3 tbsp mirin; 2 tbsp sake; 1 egg yolk; 1 tsp yuzu zest; 10 sansho leaves; 1 tsp aonori; 2 aubergines; 300 g konnyaku; 6 taro

A Muromachi-period dish: tofu on a skewer, grilled, spread with a sweetened simmered miso and then put back over the coals for a few seconds more. Fermentation basics says boiling miso kills both the aroma and the live cultures, so it goes in at the end and is not boiled hard. Dengaku puts that miso directly over charcoal. It works because the aroma of the miso is not what is wanted here: miso is what koji's protease left behind after cutting soy protein apart, so it is unusually rich in free amino acids, and mixed with sugar and held under direct heat it browns in half a minute. The ferment's own smell is destroyed and a different one is made.

Steps

Wrap the tofu in kitchen paper, set a plate on it and press for 30 minutes. Water left in it comes out over the fire and pushes the miso off.
⏲ 30 min
Cut the tofu into bars about 2cm thick, 3cm wide and 8cm long and push two skewers side by side into each. One skewer and the tofu spins as you turn it — which is why Kansai uses a split double skewer.
⏲ 15 min
In a small pan cook the miso, sugar, mirin and sake over low heat for 5-6 minutes, stirring the whole time. Stop when a spatula drawn across the base leaves a track that holds for a moment. Cool it, then stir in the yolk and the yuzu or sansho.
⏲ 6 min
Get charcoal or a grill properly hot. Grill the bare tofu first, with no miso on it, 3-4 minutes a side, until the surface has a dry skin and some colour. This order is the dish: miso applied first burns long before the tofu is cooked.
⏲ 8 min
Off the heat, spread the neri-miso thickly over one face, about 3mm. It has to be a paste you spread rather than a sauce that runs, which is what stops it sliding off over direct heat.
⏲ 5 min
Put it back, miso side up, for thirty to sixty seconds only. It is ready when the surface swells into bubbles and darkens in patches. Do not walk away — there is sugar in it, and past a minute it goes bitter (browning and Maillard).
⏲ 1 min
Scatter aonori or sansho and serve at once. This belongs with the dishes serving temperature says have no grace period — cold, the miso sets hard and the tofu starts weeping.
⏲ 1 min

Tips & Variations

Variations

Oden came out of this. In the Edo period people who would not wait for the grill began boiling dengaku instead, and that boiled form is oden — 御田, an honorific prefix on the 田 of 田楽. Edo had hawkers calling "ukan oden" through the streets. So this site's oden page is this dish's descendant, and the fork between them is whether the miso goes onto the fire or the item goes into broth.
The name comes from a dance. White tofu on a skewer was said to look like the dengaku monks who danced on tall bamboo stilts in white trousers to pray for a good rice harvest. The diary Sōchō Shuki records "dengaku tofu" in the twelfth month of 1526, and an Edo senryū runs "dengaku: once we watched it, now we eat it."
Changing what is on the skewer. Tofu was the original and is still the default, but aubergine (nasu dengaku), konnyaku and taro are all standard. Made with fish it gets its own name, gyoden (魚田).
Region and aromatics. In Kyoto, Gion tofu under sanshō miso announced the spring. Around Toyohashi and Okazaki in Aichi, nameshi dengaku — served with a bowl of greens rice — is still the local speciality. Edo used one skewer; Kansai a split pair.
Against yakitori. Yakitori's tare is a thin sauce brushed on repeatedly during the grilling to build layers. Neri-miso goes on once, at the end, thickly. Because it does not run, it never reaches the coals and reacts only at its own surface.
With white miso. A sweet white miso like Saikyō needs the sugar cut sharply. The colour comes up much paler and yet browns sooner, because the miso is already sweeter.

Tips

Pressing the water out is half the recipe. Unpressed tofu weeps over the fire and the miso slides off with the water.
Do not change the order. Grill, then spread, then a few seconds more. Miso first and it is already burnt while the tofu is still cold.
Thirty to sixty seconds. The only tight window in the dish. Miso with sugar in it runs through good colour and into bitterness fast, for the reasons in browning and Maillard.
Keep the neri-miso stiff. Runny, it drips onto the coals, and that smoke is soot rather than aroma.
Soak the skewers. Twenty minutes and the handles will not burn.
Aromatics go into the miso last. Yuzu or sansho stirred in while it simmers loses its scent — the same point fermentation basics makes about the miso itself.
Neri-miso keeps two weeks in the fridge, so it is easier made ahead, and it does for the aubergine and konnyaku versions unchanged.