Fresh silken tofu pudding 豆腐脑
Taste the dish that got me hooked on Chinese food.
Cheerios now sell for $8/lb in LA, but in a distant childhood they were my trustworthy breakfast. I adored them until I tasted the other side. I was studying Mandarin and living with a Chinese host family in the city of Tianjin, a short bullet train from the capital.
Lai liang war laodoufu.
The cashier accepted the 7 renminbi from laoba, my host dad. She opened a giant rice cooker. Inside was pure white custard. Two scoops into a bowl, then a gravy: daylily flowers and anise, thick enough to coat your spoon. A dollop of chili oil, a drizzle of roasted sesame butter, cilantro. I was instantly warmed and comforted. We didn’t eat it, or drink it; the experience was imbibed. The custard slid in between your lips, cleanly cleaving into juicy, swallowable curds. The savoriness left you satisfied like a magnificent dinner.
The day I returned to St. Paul, I started searching for laodoufu. There was none to be found. I looked up recipes online, but they never turned out quite right. The soymilk never coalesced. The gravy was missing something.
Dejected, I spent the school year working part-time at my local Chinese restaurant, saving up paychecks for a flight back to Tianjin. I daydreamed about tasting laodoufu once again. But more than that, I imagined how life would be if other Americans had the option.
I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned. First, this week, the secrets to the best homemade tofu pudding. Next week, we’ll prepare the gravy.
This is how to make the best silken tofu pudding
老豆腐 Laodoufu is the Tianjin name for fresh silken tofu pudding. In most of China it’s called 豆腐脑 doufunao or 豆花 douhua. Before we dive into the recipe, let’s go over the basic preparation steps:
Make fresh soymilk.
Soak dried soybeans until hydrated.
Grind into soymilk.
Cook the soymilk.
Strain out the dregs.
Coagulate the soymilk.
Reheat the soymilk.
Mix with coagulant.
Rest to set.
Got the basics? Let’s dive into the details. One batch serves 3-5.
Ingredients:
125g dried soybeans (~3/4 cup)
1000g water, divided
2.5g GDL
Notes: soybean quality matters A LOT. Their flavor becomes your tofu’s flavor. Beans should be plump, not shriveled; tan, not green or purple; and free from debris. Small beans are easier to use than large ones as they produce fewer soymilk dregs (okara), making them simpler to strain. Just because a bean is labeled as non-GMO does NOT mean it’s high quality. GDL is the best coagulant for doufunao. It’s an acid that’s often used to make feta cheese. You can easily buy it on Amazon. Calcium sulfate, nigari (magnesium chloride), and pickled vegetable juice are best used for other varieties of tofu.
Equipment:
Kitchen scale
Precision scale - something like this
Muslin cloth - or an unused, fine weave dress shirt
Coarse muslin or cheesecloth - something like this
Thermometer
Rice cooker (ideal but not necessary)
Notes: the most difficult step in making homemade tofu is straining the hot soymilk dregs (okara). This is necessary as okara can prevent tofu from coagulating and give it a coarse mouthfeel. Unfortunately, dregs tend to clog straining cloth. The best solution is to use two different cloths. The first should be coarse, like double-layered cheesecloth or something like this. The second should be fine, like a muslin, nut milk bag, or fine weave dress shirt. This straining cloths will be squeezed intensely, so they must be durable. To clean, rinse immediately after use, boil in a pot of water, drain, then squeeze dry. Some recipes call for straining soymilk dregs before cooking the soymilk. This approach is simpler, but it doesn’t have as much nutrition or flavor.
Method
Add your beans to a shallow tray and pick out any that are off-color (green, purple) or shriveled.
Soak the beans until just doubled in size, but not any longer. This takes 5-12 hours, depending on the water temperature. If you continue soaking longer than that, the beans may begin fermenting, releasing bubbles into the water, and become sour. When soaking, use excess water, several inches above the height of the beans. Soaking reduces the oligosaccharides content of the beans, which are the indigestible sugars that cause flatulence.
Add 500g water to a clean, grease-free, heavy-bottom pot and bring to a simmer. Transfer the remaining 500g water and beans to a blender and blend until coarsely ground. (If the soybean pulp is too fine, it will clog the straining cloth.) Add the soymilk to the simmering pot of water and bring to a boil. BE VERY CAREFUL. The soymilk will at some point rise up the sides of your pot. When this happens, stir and lower the heat. Boil for 14 minutes at 100C. (Do not cook at a lower temperature. 100C for 14 minutes is necessary to inactivate most of the trypsin inhibitors in soymilk.)
Soymilk is beginning to creep up the walls of the pot.
Note: Soymilk will stick to your pot and burn. This is normal. Stirring the bottom of the bottom will only help if you do it constantly, which is usually not feasible. Fortunately, a little bit of scorching can actually enhance the flavor of your soymilk. As soon as you transfer the soymilk to your straining setup, scrape the bottom of the pot immediately, with a spoon, iron wool, or something of the sort. Don’t just leave it to soak, or it will stick more. If your soymilk tastes bitter, it scorched too much.
Pour the hot soymilk through a coarse straining bag, set over a colander on top of a clean bowl. Immediately, wash your pot. Then pick up the edges of the straining bag, jostling the soymilk to help it drain. Once the liquid is mostly through, twist the bag from the top and apply pressure (i.e., with a weight or heavy pot) to squeeze out as much soymilk as possible. Repeat with the fine straining cloth.
Jostling the straining bag so that the soymilk can flow out.
Return the soymilk to a clean, grease-free pot and bring to a simmer. Meanwhile, mix the GDL with a small amount of warm water to dissolve. Add to the base of a rice cooker set to keep warm, or another bowl that will hold its heat. (The custard won't set if the soymilk cools too much, and it tastes better warm.) Once the soymilk is hot (~90C), remove any yuba or tofu skin on top, then gently pour into the rice cooker bow. Try to minimize bubbles. Stir once, then cover with the lid and rest for 30 minutes. It will set into a beautiful custard.
Before you give it a go, here are some common mistakes to avoid:
Custard not setting.
Soymilk was <80C when mixed with coagulant, maybe because the coagulant water cooled it down.
Soymilk wasn’t strained properly and still has dregs.
Coagulation container was shaken.
Coagulating soymilk was over-stirred.
One of the containers or pots was greasy.
Not enough coagulant was added.
Very low yield.
If soymilk is ground but not boiled right away, it quickly spoils, killing the yield.
Too much coagulant was used, causing extra water to leach out of the tofu pudding.
Soymilk bubbled over.
Stay vigilant as it’s heating up!!
And use a high-walled pot.
Soymilk not straining.
The soybeans were maybe ground too finely.
Maybe you need a coarser straining cloth.
(This step is generally hard!! You’re not alone.)
Top of custard has a lot of bubbles.
Totally fine, this is mostly aesthetic. The lower layers of tofu are totally fine. Just pour your soymilk more gently next time, or ladle it in.
The pudding isn’t as thick (or thin) as you’d like.
You can vary the firmness by adjusting the water:beans ratio. 8:1 (by weight) is standard for northern style tofu pudding. 10:1 is reasonable for softer, Fujianese/Cantonese applications. You can go as high as 5:1 if you’d like it extra rich.
Good luck! We’ll see you next week to talk gravy.