Simmered Toasted Wheat Gluten (焼き麩の煮物, Yaki-fu no Nimono)

Yaki-fu looks like something too plain to matter: dry rings of toasted wheat gluten, light in the hand, almost weightless. That is its virtue. Give it good broth and it becomes a small lesson in nimono, the simmered method where the ingredient drinks rather than merely wears the seasoning.

The one detail that decides it is the soaking and squeezing. Soak the fu until soft all the way through, then press out the plain water before it meets the seasoned broth. If you skip that, the rings are already full and have no room for dashi, shoyu, and mirin. A sponge cannot drink twice. Even a scholar learns this without needing a second notebook.

This is budget cooking, temple cooking, make-ahead cooking, and none of those are apologies. For a meatless table, use konbu and dried shiitake dashi, the way temple kitchens do, and call it honmono. For the everyday table, a clear dashi with katsuobushi gives the familiar backbone. Either way, simmer gently under a drop-lid so the seasoning reaches every ring without rough handling. Leave it to cool in its broth, and the dish finishes itself while you do something more dramatic, like washing the rice.