Yong Tau Foo (Fish-Paste Stuffed Tofu and Vegetables)

Name: Yong Tau Foo (Fish-Paste Stuffed Tofu and Vegetables)
Total time: 1 h 10 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Singaporean (Hakka)
Ingredients: 400 g Fish paste (from Spanish mackerel or ready-made); 300 g Firm tofu, cut in 4 cm squares 1.5 cm thick; 4 Large mild red chillies; 1 Bitter gourd, in 2 cm rings, seeds removed; 8 Okra; 1 Small eggplant, in 2 cm slices; 40 g Dried anchovies (ikan bilis); 50 g Soybeans, soaked; 1.8 L Water; 1.5 tsp Salt; ½ tsp White pepper; 2 tbsp Cornstarch, for dusting; 3 Spring onions and fried shallots, to serve; 4 tbsp Sweet bean sauce and chilli sauce, for dipping

The Hakka dish of stuffing — tofu, chillies, bitter gourd, okra and eggplant filled with fish paste and simmered in a clear anchovy broth. In Singapore you pick your pieces from a display, they are cooked to order, and the bowl comes with sweet bean sauce and chilli. This is the home version: five vegetables, one bowl of paste, one pot.

Source

Recette de Chinese-Singaporean hawker stalls · 🏺 Traditionnel · Teochew, Hokkien and Cantonese stall cooking in Singapore's hawker centres and coffee shops

Singapore · the Hakka stuffing dish — An ownerless traditional dish, so no cook is credited. The cited article confirms yong tau foo as a Hakka Chinese dish of tofu filled with ground meat or fish paste, with variants stuffing vegetables and mushrooms, eaten dry with sauce or as soup, common in Singapore and across the Hakka diaspora. The anchovy-soybean broth, the cornstarch-and-wet-spoon method, the frying step, timings and quantities are this book's own.

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⏱ 70 min🍽 4 portions🔥 330 kcal🇸🇬 Singapour🌶️

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Étapes

Make the broth: rinse the anchovies, and simmer them with the soybeans in the water 40 minutes. Strain and season with salt and pepper.
Prepare the vegetables for stuffing: slit each chilli and okra lengthways and scrape out the seeds; cut a pocket into each tofu square; make a deep slit in each eggplant slice; hollow the bitter gourd rings.
Dust every cut surface lightly with cornstarch — this is what makes the paste stick. Press fish paste into each piece with a wet spoon, mounding it slightly and smoothing the top.
💡 Cornstarch first, wet spoon second. Skip the starch and the paste slides out in the broth; use a dry spoon and it sticks to the spoon instead of the vegetable.
Pan-fry the stuffed tofu and eggplant paste-side down in a little oil 2 minutes until golden — they hold together better and taste better for it.
Bring the broth to a simmer. Add the bitter gourd first (6 minutes), then the chillies, okra, tofu and eggplant (5 minutes), until the paste is firm and white through.
Serve in bowls with the broth, spring onions and fried shallots, with the two sauces for dipping — or over noodles for the full hawker plate.

💡 Astuces

The stuffed pieces freeze raw on a tray and cook from frozen — add 3 minutes. A Sunday of stuffing is a month of dinners.
'Dry' yong tau foo is the same pieces fried and tossed in sweet sauce — the hawker's other option, and better for the eggplant.