Making Hakka Style Stuffed Tofu

Hakka style stuffed tofu we ate in Mui Yuen last month

Last month my mom and her siblings went to Mui Yuen, or Meixian county in Guangdong province, where her side of the family is from.

They last visited in 2008, where they went from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, and from there arranged a van to take them to Mui Yuen, which took about five hours on the road.

Tofu with seasoned ground pork stuffed in them

Seventeen years later we took the high-speed rail from West Kowloon station in Hong Kong to Meixian county in just over two hours, including three stops in between.

For my mom and her siblings it was a great way for them to get together, reminisce and speak Hakka, which I didn't understand...

While we were in their hometown for a few days we of course had to have some Hakka food, but to be honest, what we tried overall was meh.

We had asked our tour guide to take us to the best restaurants, but either she didn't know the best places, or they were and weren't that good.

It's hard to comprehend since over 90 percent of the population there is Hakka, so it's not like a non-Hakka person cooking dishes they didn't grow up eating.

Napa cabbage in the Dutch oven and stir-fried

Nevertheless, one of the better dishes we ate was stuffed tofu, which was stuffed with seasoned ground pork and then pan-fried before it was braised. The tofu was also silky smooth, which required skills to be able to panfry and braise without breaking them.

I hope to eventually be able to make something similar, but in the meantime I was inspired to make another version from A Very Chinese Cookbook by Kevin Pang and his father Jeffrey Pang.

In it Jeffrey explains he is Hakka, and gives his relatively easy recipe of stuffed tofu which I followed and doubled for a big family dinner.

First step is mashing some fresh ginger and spring onion in some water for about 20 minutes until the water turns green.

With chicken stock added, tofu is placed upright

Then the water is strained and added to ground pork, along with soy sauce, oyster sauce, Shaoxing wine, white pepper, and sesame oil. Once that is mixed thoroughly that should be left to marinate for at least an hour (though I didn't do it for that long!).

In the meantime take firm tofu, cut them lengthwise and then into four small squares. Taking a spoon, make a small round scoop in the middle, and then carefully add the pork mixture, leaving a small mound. 

Chop a Napa cabbage in half and then half again lengthwise, and then chop into two-inch pieces and wash. Then heat up a Dutch oven, add oil and the Napa cabbage and stir-fry it for several minutes. Add chicken broth, and then using chopsticks, arrange the cabbage to create a nest before placing the tofu with pork upright.

After 15 minutes the pork and tofu are cooked

Cover it and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes and the dish is done. The sweetness of the cabbage along with the pork adds flavour to the tofu. I added a pinch of salt in the end.

I've also made an Indonesian version using fish sauce in the seasoning and cutting the tofu into triangles and stuffing the meat in a slit in the middle.