What Is Tofu Or Bean Curd?
Dec 6th, 2008 by admin
As with the previous post on thousand year old egg, I’ve been planning this post on tofu (doufu in Mandarin, daufu in Cantonese and tofu in Japanese) or bean curd for a while, ever since a friend asked me what tofu was. As I took some photos of tofu dishes in Hong Kong and Beijing on my recent trip, I thought I’d highlight them here, so that you can see tofu prepared in a variety of ways.
Tofu originates from China, and is made from soy milk, which in turn is produced from yellow soybeans, long part of the Chinese diet. It has very little taste, but absorbs the flavours of the accompanying ingredients. A very versatile ingredient, it’s now commonly used to make all manner of products from sausages and burgers to ice cream and joghurt. More importantly, being an excellent source of protein, iron and calcium, and low in calories, it’s incredibly good for your health.
In Asian cooking, tofu comes in a variety of textures – soft or silken, regular and firm, to be used for different cooking purposes (for example, firm tofu, which is also quite dry) would be more suited to stir-frying. I like to buy tofu as fresh as possible. The blocks sealed in plastic containers found in Chinese supermarkets in the UK will last up to a week in the fridge at home (although you have to open the container, rinse the tofu, change the water daily and keep it sealed). Unless you’re planning to eat tofu every day, buy it in smaller quantities, as you really need to use it while fresh. I’ve also heard that tofu can be frozen, but this gives it a different texture when thawed.
When I can’t get to a Chinese supermarket, I’ll buy the sealed Japanese version, which also comes as silken or firm. The advantage of this is that it keeps for months at room temperature (unopened of course!). You can also buy tofu puffs and tofu skins, found in the refrigerated section of supermarkets as well as various dried versions. In Hong Kong, I bought some dried bean curd strips (as thin as tagliatelle), which can be used in soups. I’m looking forward to trying these out!
Within Chinese cuisine, I prefer some methods of tofu preparation over others. I loved the two dishes I had at Pearl Liang earlier this year – stuffed bean curd with prawn paste in oyster sauce and aoki mushroom and silken bean curd with crab meat sauce. However, recently in Hong Kong and Beijing, I was able to sample some very special dishes, all vegetarian. I’m sure it makes a difference if the tofu used is super fresh. The only thing I didn’t try was doufu fa, which is a dessert, served sweet or savoury, hot or cold, but I ate this a few years ago in a famous Taipei shop that only sells doufu fa.
- Photo 1 – bean curd sheet with beansprouts, Xi Yan in Hong Kong
- Photo 2 – crispy bean curd roll with mushrooms, Chung’s Cuisine in Hong Kong
- Photo 3 – braised bean curd with Chinese mushrooms, Chung’s Cuisine in Hong Kong
- Photo 4 – bean curd skin roll with vegetables, Lock Cha Tea Shop in Hong Kong
- Photo 5 – preserved egg with tofu, Noodle Bar in Beijing
- Photo 6 – fried crispy bean curd with chillies, Hakka Restaurant in Beijing
The Xi Yan side dish of bean curd sheet resembled noodles more than bean curd, in both texture and appearance, and tasted incredible. At Chung’s Cuisine, where everything is free of MSG and artificial colouring, the pieces of braised bean curd were as thick and meaty as steaks. The vegetarian dim sum at Lock Cha Tea Shop included some superb tofu dishes, and the bean curd skin roll was similar to vegetarian ‘mock’ slices of meat.
At Noodle Bar in Beijing, the preserved egg served with chilled silken tofu was served as a small side dish, with a sprinkle of chopped spring onion and a dash of soy sauce. And I finally came across a version of crispy deep-fried tofu that I could eat for the rest of my life. I usually can’t stand the stuff, as the insides end up being overcooked and dry. This version at the Hakka Restaurant, however, was made with silken tofu (and the biggest dried chillies I’ve seen in a while)!
One day, if I ever make it to Chengdu, Sichuan, I’d like to visit Chen Mapo Doufu, the restaurant (open since 1862) from where the famous spicy tofu dish originates.
And what is fermented bean curd? I’ll save that for another post! For now, I can tell you that I love it, and it’s perfect for jazzing up stir-fried vegetables such as morning glory. Meanwhile, I’d love to hear about your favourite tofu dishes…
If you’ve enjoyed reading this, you might like the others posts from The Larder series:
I love tofu in hot&sour soup !
Being a good source of protein, it’d probably be a good addition to my diet too. It’ll just be a matter of putting some sort of low-calorie condiment on it, to add taste…
Hope that you have a good weekend, Helen
Loving Annie of Travel Treasures
http://www.truetraveltreasures.blogspot.com
Please come visit – I’d love to know what you think !
I love tofu; I think it’s one of the most under-rated ingredients (in the UK, anyway) as most people regard it as a meat substitute, when in fact it’s so much more. I did a section on my blog called Tofu Tuesday which went pretty well (that reminds me to perhaps start it up again…).
I love Doufu fa (cold, sweet) – do you know of anywhere in London that serves it? Ma Po Tofu is one of my favourite dishes of all time; I use Fushcia Dunlop’s recipe. Fried beancurd stuffed with prawn paste is also a favourite.
Hi Helen Yuet Ling,
Daufu is one of those staples of Cantonese or Hakka cooking that we almost take it for granted. One of the most popular ways of using it in home cooking is to make stuffed daufu with minced pork and shrimp paste and mince up some dried salted fish in the mixture (the secret ingredient) with sometimes finely chopped and reconstituted dried mandarin orange peel and fresh coriandar (cilantro). The art of stuffed daufu is not breaking the daufu in the stuffing process. There needs to be a deep enough hole in the middle of the piece of daufu to put the filling and sturdy enough so the piece of daufu is held together with the stuffing to undergo steaming and then coated with a rich sauce. So good and also great served in a three treasure dish such as stuffed aubergines (eggplant) and green bell peppers. So much of this dish reminds me of family meals together during Christmas or Chinese New Year. Daufu is a treasure we shouldn’t overlook.
Susan Shifay Cheung
I love tofu! There is so much you can do with a simple packet of tofu. Oh the dried bean curd, my mum uses this in sweet and savoury soups, sometimes we have it as part of the hotpot selection. But its weird for the dried bean curd, because sometimes we get really nice ones (well i prefer it) where when its put into sweet soup desserts it ‘melts’ gently which is wonderful, other times it never seems to ‘melt’ so its still in strands which i find annoying. Like susan above the stuffed tofu is wonderful dish! I remember my mum making me stuff tofu when i was younger, she does it less now since its so time consuming, but it was mhmm….
Tofu as a sweet dessert is yums too! I love love this dessert, especailly in hk when its hot and a bowl of cold tofu is just =). Although in Uk i prefer it warm. But, i cant recommend which brand of sweet tofu we buy because my aunty makes it from scratch =P. I hope this xmas, there’ll be some! I will defiantely blog about it with a picture too haha.
Oh you can make tofu, both sweet one and non-sweet one. Aunties use to make it during one time when they first learnt the method………..oh i want some now in fact!
I love mapo tofu, ‘hoi tong dofu’ (where its tofu and egg white at bottom with an assorted mixture of seafood on top), fried tofu…..although i havent tried ‘smelly’ tofu. I think thats the fermentated tofu you will be talking about later haha. I smelt it in MK and gave it a pass since it was so hot didnt feel like eating something smelly and fried lol
This is probably the longest post i’ve ever written. Oh i love thousand year egg too in congee. That is absolutely divine, mum never cooks it because the thousand year egg she thinks is unhealthy =(
Thanks everyone for your comments on the many many ways in which tofu can be prepared!
Lizzie – haven’t had tofu fa in ages in London, but if I come across it, I’ll let you know!
vivi – no, I didn’t mention ‘stinky’ or ‘smelly’ tofu, but I’ll be writing about fermented tofu (‘fu yu’), which comes in jars. I love it!
I’ll try the thousand year old egg with chilled silken tofu at home soon. I’m sure it’s really easy…
Helen Yuet Ling
lol. I thought your fermentated tofu was smelly tofu +_+, hehe.
oh ‘fu yu’, i’m not too fond of the stuff, bt i like it when put into a lambs hotpot mixed in. I’ll be waiitng for ur nxt post abt fu yu! i wana know what else u can cook it with except from lamb………hehe
Helen! I just saw the photo of thousand year egg with tofu and it brought back (salivating) memories from my summer in HK this year. We had the same dish but differently presented, must say your dish looks much easier to eat! Ours was a cube of tofu with the egg on top, sauce underneath and fish flakes (I can’t remember the original japanese name for them) sprinkled on top. Who would have thought such a simple dish is so easy to please!
Dana – I think it would have been easier to eat my dish if there had been a spoon provided! But it was delicious and I want to replicate it at home very soon (as soon as I have bought my egg!). Bonito flakes perhaps? If you like thousand year old egg, this is the dish! I like the way it goes so nicely with the tofu.
Helen Yuet Ling