Gluten cake refers to “wheat gluten cake” in Japan, and it is called “FU” in Japanese. FU is a processed food produced from wheat gluten as main raw material.
It looks like a small piece of bread, but it’s not. It is made by extracting gluten from wheat first and mixing the gluten with wheat. Finally that is heated with steam, baked, or deep fried. I used deep fried one for the following recipe.
▲Deep-Fried Wheat Gluten Cake (Fu)
We often eat FU with miso soup or clear soup in Japan. FU in miso soup become juicy and tasty after it takes up the soup. It might be similar to soup with crouton. (It’s much bigger than crouton though…)
There is another miso soup recipe using different kind of FU; colorful wheat gluten cake (temari-fu in Japanese).
Please take a look at this Colorful Fu Recipetoo!
FU is also used in stir-frying dish instead of meat, so it is useful ingredient for vegetarian. I recommend this stir-frying recipe using wheat gluten cake below.
Stir-Fried Fu (Wheat Gluten Cake) And Vegetables Recipe
【Recipe for Fu Miso Soup】
Ingredients (2 servings)
1 oz miso (fermented soybean paste)*1
1 teaspoon dashi granules*2
1/2 teaspoon dried wakame (a type of seaweed)
0.5 oz FU (wheat gluten cake)
1.7 cups (400ml) water
(Prepare extra water to reconstitute dried wakame)
*1 Feel free to adjust the amounts of miso paste to your liking.
*2 If miso paste already contains dashi, don’t need dashi granules. I use miso paste containig dashi this time.
Directions
1. Combine dried wakame with boiled water and wait until reconstituted. (takes about 1 min)
2. Drain in a sieve and wash with cold water lightly.
3. Heat water, wakame, and FU (wheat gluten cake) in a saucepan until FU gets soft slightly. Add dashi granules, if you need, and remove from heat after granules is melted.
4. Add miso paste and stir until miso is completely melted.
Ready to eat!
I simmered FU in a saucepan for a little time because the size of FU is kind of big this time. If you use smaller one, you may not be necessary to heat, and can just put them in the bowl right before you eat.
There are various type of FU, so please find the one you really like!
Enjoy your miso soup!
