Homemade Hakka "Yong Tou Fu' @ Stuffed Bean Curd

My 6th out of the 10 dishes I made for my previous New Year party. This is 'Hakka Yong Tofu' or stuffed bean curd but my friends calling it as ' Ah Yee Yong Tofu'. haha.....They said it's my signature dish. So, they put my name on it. :P Hakka is one of the Chinese dialect other than Cantonese, Hokkien, Fok Chow....and many many more. They all speaks in different way and even cooked differently. My parents are both Cantonese so that makes me a Cantonese too. The funny thing was my dad prefer making western food and my mom only make simple meal. There's no particular or signature dish for them. As far as I know, Cantonese cooking is more to sweet flavouring and Hakka is more to salty.

And I have mine version here.

Ingredients :
500gm fish paste
5 pcs pressed tofu
10 red chilies
20 fried tofu puffs
1 eggplant, here


Ingredients for gravy :
3 cups water
3 shallots, roughly chopped
1 inch knob ginger, roughly smashed
1 tbsp fermented soy bean paste
3 tbsp vegetarian oyster sauce
1 tspn light soy sauce
pepper to taste


Method :
(1) firstly, clean, cut & stuffs all the ingredients with fish paste then set aside.
(2) now, place all the gravy ingredients into a big pot and bring to boil.
(3) then switch to low heat, in another hand prepare another frying pan/wok with oil to fry all the stuffed ingredients.
(4) fry all the stuffed ingredients over low heat untill light brown and then transfer them to the gravy pot & continue boiling over low heat for about 20-30 mins.


* Only put in the stuffed chilies 10 mins before it's ready.


Of course, other than using bean curd, tofu puffs, eggplants & chillies for stuffing. You might as well use bitter gourd, ladyfingers, mushroom and bean curd sheet (for wu xiang).

Now, here's the 7th out of the 10 dishes. I'm trying to balance my menu with this special vegetarian dish by using vegetarian lamb meat. Basically, vegetarian meat is made of flour or soy bean and meaning pretty much tasteless. By making it in this way, it's a total winner. I have been quiet the whole night about this vegetarian dish, unless someone ask me about it. Well, they did! They started asking questions after their first bite on it. haha... They were surprised when I told them this is a vegetarian dish because it doesn't taste like one. The whole dish gone within a second. Well, you might as well use the real lamb meat by following the same recipe as given below. If the meat is too dense then add in a little extra water to simmer untill tender.


Ingredients for Vegetarian Creamy Curry Lamb :
500gm vegetarian lamb meat
500gm potatoes
2 stalks lemongrass, trimmed & cut into 2
1-1/2 tbsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp kurma powder (corriander powder for replacememnt)
2 cups coconut milk

Blended paste :
1 large onion
1 inch ginger
5 cloves garlic
10 birds eye chillies

Method : Please refer here.
*
My Chinese New Year Party Menu Listed as follow :
(1) Chinese Chicken Meat Roll @ wu xiang
(2) Simple Stir Fried Spicy Fern Shoots
(3) Ikan Kembung With Pickled Mustard In Assam Soup
(4) Yu Shang @ Raw Fish Salad
(5) Baby Kai Lan In Braised Taro
(6) Hakka Stuffed Bean Curd @ Yong Tofu
(7) Vegetarian Lamb Meat In Creamy Curry
(8) Fragrant rice & White rice
(9) Roasted Black Pepper Chicken
(10) Desserts : Swirl Berry Cheesecake & 'Kuai Lin Go' Jelly