Grilled/Roasted Cabbage With Furu Butter
Whether it's pan-seared, oven-roasted our outdoor-grilled, charred cabbage is a welcome summer side dish—especially when it features Chinese fermented tofu as a lux but unexpected flavoring. I've sung the praises of furu butter—simply furu smashed into butter!)—in this space before, and now contributor Xueci Cheng goes a step further and cooks with it. (I immediately made the recipe myself, and....sooo good.) Here's the details:
"If you’ve never tried it, fǔrǔ (腐乳), or dòufǔ rǔ (豆腐乳)—usually called fermented bean curd or “Chinese cheese” in English—is a tofu-based condiment. It is made with firm tofu that is inoculated with mold, salted and left to ferment in a brine seasoned with rice wine, spices or red rice yeast. Over weeks (or months), the tofu becomes soft and spreadable, with a texture similar to soft cheeses like ricotta and a flavor that’s salty, faintly sweet and deeply savory....
"Over the past two years, however, I’ve started using furu in new ways that give it a role beyond that of a trusted companion to rice. I stir it into leafy greens, use it to marinate meat and lean on it to enrich stews. My latest dish took this experimentation further still: I mashed it into butter and then melted the result over charred cabbage. The idea isn’t traditional, but the combination echoes the Asian-flavored butters you can now find everywhere....
"After several rounds of testing, I found that oven-roasting the cabbage brought out the best texture and flavor. Roasting brings out the natural sweetness of the cabbage while allowing the furu butter to better seep into the leaves, giving the dish a mildly funky, almost cheese-like flavor. If you’d like a more smoky, charred flavor, grilling or pan-searing the cabbage also works well; just brush the cabbage with oil first and add the butter later, so it doesn’t burn."
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