Simmered Wheat-Gluten Cakes (大徳寺麩, Daitokuji Fu)

Fu is wheat gluten, and that plain sentence frightens more cooks than it should. In Daitokuji fu, the gluten is not pretending to be meat. It is being itself: springy, absorbent, a little stubborn until you teach it to drink. The dish looks dark and severe on the plate, very Kyoto in its refusal to flatter you, but the work is simple.

The first detail is water. Dried fu must be soaked all the way to the center, then pressed gently so stale soaking water leaves and the dashi can enter. If you simmer a dry core in shōyu, the outside becomes salty before the middle has learned anything. Give sugar and mirin a short head start, add the shōyu after, and keep the pot quiet under an otoshibuta, a drop-lid. It seasons evenly without stirring, which would tear the pieces.

This belongs to shōjin ryōri, the temple cooking of Kyoto, so I use konbu and dried shiitake dashi here. That is honmono, not a lesser version; the temple table knows how much depth sits in kelp and a mushroom when you don't bully them. Serve it warm or at room temperature beside rice, greens, and soup. Make it ahead if you can. The rest is where the color turns mahogany and the spring returns.