Fried stinky tofu — deep-fried fermented tofu with pickled cabbage

Iniciante

Fried Stinky Tofu with Taiwanese Pickled Cabbage

Name: Fried Stinky Tofu with Taiwanese Pickled Cabbage
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Taiwanese
Ingredients: 8 pieces Fermented stinky tofu blocks; 800 ml Neutral frying oil; 400 g Napa cabbage, in 3 cm squares; 1 tbsp Salt, for the cabbage; 0.5 Carrot, in thin strips; 80 ml Rice vinegar; 4 tbsp Sugar; 3 cloves Garlic, sliced; 1 Red chilli, sliced; 4 cloves Garlic, finely grated, for the sauce; 2 tbsp Light soy sauce; 2 tbsp Water, for the sauce; 1 tsp Sugar, for the sauce; 1 tbsp Chilli sauce or chilli oil

The night market's most confronting smell and one of its gentlest tastes: fermented tofu fried until the shell puffs hollow, split open, filled with garlic sauce and buried under cold sweet-sour cabbage.

Fonte

Receita de Taiwanese night market stalls · 🏺 Tradicional · Yeshi (夜市) stall cooking — the evening street kitchen that feeds most Taiwanese towns after dark

Taiwanese night market street food — An ownerless traditional dish; no creator is credited. The reference confirms that Taiwanese stinky tofu is cooked by frying, steaming, in soup and barbecued but is most commonly found fried, that fried stinky tofu is the most common variety in Taiwanese night markets and is considered less pungent than other varieties, and that it is "almost always served with pickled cabbage and garlic sauce". HONEST GAP: the reference does NOT document the brine used to ferment the Taiwanese version, so this recipe does not attempt to describe or reconstruct one — it starts from commercially fermented tofu, and says so. Quantities are this book's own.

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Veja como se faz

Treeman P

⏱ 40 min🍽 4 porções🔥 320 kcal🇹🇼 Taiwan🌶️

VegetarianoSem lactose

Modo de preparo

Make the pickle first, ideally the day before. Toss the cabbage with the salt and leave it 30 minutes, then squeeze out the water hard with your hands.
💡 Squeeze harder than feels polite. Any water left in the cabbage will dilute the pickling liquid into something watery and dull.
Mix the vinegar, sugar, sliced garlic and chilli until the sugar dissolves, add the cabbage and carrot, and chill it for at least an hour.
Stir the garlic sauce together — grated garlic, soy, water, sugar and chilli sauce. It should be thin enough to pour into a slit in the tofu.
Pat the tofu completely dry. Heat the oil to 170°C and fry the blocks four at a time for 6 to 8 minutes, turning once, until the outside is deep gold and taut.
💡 Open a window and turn on the extractor before the tofu goes in. The smell is the point of the dish and it will also be in your kitchen until tomorrow.
Lift them onto a rack — never onto a plate, or the base steams soft. Tap one: a good piece sounds hollow and gives slightly, like a small crisp balloon.
Cut a deep cross in the top of each block, spoon the garlic sauce down into it, and pile the cold pickled cabbage over the top. Eat while the shell is still crackling.

💡 Dicas

The smell and the taste are not the same experience. Fried stinky tofu is the mildest of the family — the steamed version is the one that tests people.
Serve it the second it leaves the oil. Ten minutes later the shell has gone leathery and there is no rescuing it.
Frozen blocks must be thawed and dried completely, or the oil will spit for the entire fry.