Yong Tau Foo

Last Saturday, I made the infamous Hakka dish -- Yong Tau Foo for a dinner party. Our friends just remodeled their kitchen and invited us to use it which I happily agreed to. They have my dream kitchen -- plus they recently made a delicious meal for us a few weeks back. :) We like to get together and try out new dishes. Since they've never had Yong Tau Foo and I've been craving for it, I thought it would be a great dish for a party of 6.






Now, I learned how to make this dish from my Grandma who does not use any sort of measuring system. So seasoning is just based on what I remembered. I served the dish with a side of dry egg noodles w/ ground pork and baby bok choy. I just cooked the egg nooldes and bok choy in boiled water and seasoned with black bean sauce, sesame oil and soy sauce. And I did a quick stir-fry of the ground pork with minced garlic, salt and pepper.

Yong Tau Foo Ingredients
- 2 Chinese Eggplants (Sliced about 1.5 inch diagonally and cut out a shallow hole in the middle)
- 1 pack of Tau Pok (Puffy Fried Tofu)
- 1 pack of Firm Tofu (cut into rectangular pieces about 1.5 inch)
- 1 pack of Firm fried Tofu
- 1 pack of bean curd skin (soften the dried beancurd with warm water)
- Cornstarch water (a couple of tablespoon of cornstarch mixed with water)
- 6 Cups of water (or chicken stock)
- 1 cube of boulion

Fillings
- 1 pound of fish paste
- 1 pound of ground pork
- 2 stalks of green onions
- 1 tbsp of fish sauce (or 1 tsp salt)
- Pepper

Cut a shallow hole in all the tofu pieces for the fillings. Mix the fillings well with the seasoning. Start stuffing the tofu and eggplant pieces with the filling and dab the cornstarch mixture on the meat. This will help keep the meat on the tofu pieces. Put about a spoonful of fillings onto the beancurd sheet and wrap it like you do with spring rolls. Once the fillings have been stuffed, heat up about 3 tbsp of oil in the wok. Brown each of the pieces, meat side down and set aside. For the beancurd sking pieces, you want to fry them to crispy brown.

In a different pot, add 6 cups of water, 1 cube of Fish Boulion (or you can use 6 cups of chicken stock). When it comes to boil, add the tofu and eggplant pieces into the pot. Simmer for another 10 - 15 minutes. Season the soup with salt or fish sauce and adjust to your taste. I like to keep the broth light since everything else is fried.



- Mina