Diversity in the Kitchen: Malaysia - Hakka Yong Tau Fu (客家釀豆腐）

This is the first in a series of articles celebrating the growing diversity of countries, cultures and cuisine among our neighbours in Albert County. We will feature stories and recipes from around the world, brought to you by new friends who now call Albert County home. Enjoy!   Lynne Greenblatt

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Hakka Yong Tau Fu (客家釀豆腐） by Lim Lee Fui 

I moved to Alma a year ago to be with the love of my life, whom I met in Malaysia nine years ago. I like my life in Albert County where I am well pampered by (besides the nature and scenery) local produce and seafood, of which I am a big fan. I am so grateful that I am still able to create many recipes from home with the vegetables, meat and seafood found in Albert County.

I am honoured to share a recipe that is connected to my heritage, Malaysian Hakka, with Connecting Albert County. Hakka is a Chinese subgroup and means ‘guest families.’  
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Yong Tau Fu is a popular Hakka dish. ‘Yong’ means ‘stuffed’ and ‘Tau Fu’ means ‘tofu.’ Although the name of this dish is stuffed tofu, most Hakka families in Malaysia stuff a variety of vegetables. The common stuffed items are tofu, bitter gourd, eggplant, okras, large chili peppers and shiitake mushrooms. Growing up, I found that it was very smart of my parents to have made us eat bitter gourd by stuffing delicious meat in it.  

I created this recipe by using the ingredients that were available in the stores in Albert County. In this recipe, I used two pieces of corned (salted) cod that I soaked for a day, changing the water four times. The taste and smell resembles the dish my parents made. No matter what filling we use or how we cook Hakka Yong Tau Fu, this dish represents the good memories that I will always remember of our family over the dining table. 

The traditional stuffing is a combination of mackerel fish paste and ground pork. My parents liked to make the fish and meat paste by pounding the fish and diced pork belly on the chopping board; our family agrees that handmade fish and meat paste has better texture than that made with a food processor. 

Our family usually had Yong Tau Fu on big occasions, such as the mid-autumn festival or winter solstice, or when we had friends over. It involves a lot of work. We often prepared this dish together: my parents would prepare the filling, and my sisters and I would join them to help stuffing the tofu and vegetables.

Each family has their own recipe, but it is well known that Yong Tau Fu filling tastes better when made with salted fish which adds umami flavour to the filling and elevates the fish and meat flavour.

With the amount of filling and stuffed vegetables from one recipe, Yong Tau Fu is a meal in itself for our family. Often the stuffed items are deep-fried, but my mother preferred a healthier pan-fried version. Yong Tau Fu can be served with sweet sauce (like hoisin sauce) or broth. We preferred the latter because we continued to cook the stuffed tofu in the broth after it was pan-fried to ensure the stuffing was cooked through. 

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Recipe: Hakka Yong Tau Fu
​Yield: 3-4 servings

Filling:
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​200 g (0.44 lb) salt cod fillets (corned fish with a texture similar to fresh fish, not hard, dried salt cod)
453 g (1 lb) ground pork
1/2 tsp white pepper
1 Tbsp oyster sauce
About 1/2 cup water
Corn starch

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Tofu and vegetables:*
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1 block firm tofu
8 dried shiitake mushrooms soaked overnight (or fresh cremini or white mushrooms)
1 bell pepper (deseeded) cut into ½-inch thick rings
2 jalapeño peppers (deseeded) slit lengthwise to make a boat-like shape
1 eggplant cut into 1-inch thick slices with a slit in the middle, but not all the way through
*You can substitute any vegetable that can hold the stuffing.

Broth:

1 carton (1 L or 4 cups) chicken or vegetable broth with dash of soy sauce 

Instructions:

1. Rinse fish and soak for a day. Change water 3-4 times, depending on how salty you want the filling to be.
   
2. Soak shiitake mushrooms in cool water and store in the fridge overnight.
   
3. The next day, cut firm tofu into 12 pieces. In the middle of each piece, carve a rectangular hole with a 1/4-inch border on four sides. Cut carefully to avoid tearing the tofu. The tofu that has been scooped out can be mixed into fish-pork paste in step 6.
   
4. Squeeze water from the shiitake mushrooms. Keep the water. Remove stems and set them aside.
   
5. Rinse and squeeze excess water off the fish and pat it dry. If you want more umami flavour, you can pan-fry a quarter of the fish until lightly brown.
   
6. Put soaked and pan-fried fish, pork, tofu cut-outs, pepper and oyster sauce into the food processor. Add water gradually until the mixture becomes a wet paste.  
7. Dust tofu pieces, shiitake mushrooms, bell peppers and the inside of jalapeños and eggplant slices with corn starch.
   
8. Using a teaspoon or a butter knife, stuff fish/meat paste into tofu, mushroom caps and vegetable slices. Make sure there is a tiny hump of stuffing on the cut surface but it is full enough that the meat will cook thoroughly and stay inside the vegetables.
   
9. Coat the stuffed side of the vegetables with corn starch so that the stuffing won’t fall out.
   
10. Coat a skillet with a thin layer of oil; heat on medium low. Put the stuffed vegetables on the heated skillet, stuffing-side down to seal the seam between stuffing and vegetable/tofu, pan-fry for ~2 minutes or until the stuffing no longer sticks to the pan, then the other sides for 30 seconds to 1 minute (or until light brown). 
    
    1. Cook one type of vegetable at a time because different vegetables require different cooking times. Between batches, scrape residue off the skillet and apply oil.
       
    2. Start with stuffed eggplant because eggplant oxidizes faster than the rest of the vegetables on this list.
       
    3. Tofu: pan-fry the stuffing side until golden brown then boil the stuffed tofu for 5 minutes in the broth.
       
    4. Vegetables: after pan-frying, put a lid on to "steam cook" for about 2 minutes. (If the skillet is dry, add 1/4 cup of water before covering.) Ensure the water doesn't fully evaporate to avoid burning. Repeat the process until all sides of the vegetables and meat are cooked (use a thermometer to ensure the filling reaches 160F). 
11. Bring broth to a boil, add water from soaking shiitakes and a dash of soy sauce. Add stuffed tofu and simmer for 5 minutes.
    
12. Serve stuffed tofu in broth. The rest of the stuffed vegetables can be eaten with your favourite sauce.
    
13. If there is filling left over, drop a teaspoon of it at a time into the simmering broth (after stuffed tofu is removed from the broth). After the filling floats to the surface, let simmer for 5 minutes.