Tofu pudding
豆腐花
“The bowl by the herbal-tea shop door, made at home.”
Ingredientsserves 4
百子櫃Gypsum / GDL· food-grade gypsum; or a teaspoon (about 3 g) of GDL dissolved in two tablespoons of waterabout 4 g
Equipment
- A tall pot; soy milk boils over
- A cloth or muslin bag for straining
- A flat ladle, to shave it out in slices
Method
- Drain the soaked beans and blend them with six cups of water (1.5 L) in two batches until completely smooth.
- Strain through a cloth or muslin bag, squeezing hard; discard the pulp or keep it for cooking.
- Bring the raw milk to the boil in a tall pot, then keep it at a gentle boil five to eight minutes, stirring the bottom and skimming the foam. Raw soy milk foams up violently and must be watched, and it must be boiled through; raw soy milk is not safe to eat.
- Syrup: dissolve the sugar (or slab sugar) in 100 ml of water with the ginger slices and set aside.
- Coagulant: stir the gypsum, cornflour and a quarter cup (60 ml) of water together in a large bowl or a second pot; with GDL, dissolve it in two tablespoons of water. Stir it again just before the pour so nothing sits on the bottom; skip this and the pudding does not set.
- Take the milk off the heat, let it drop for a minute to about 85 to 90°C, and pour it into the coagulant from a height, all at once. Do not stir. Do not move the bowl.
- Cover with a plate or a damp cloth and leave it twenty to forty minutes (forty minutes to an hour with gypsum). If it does not set: carton soy milk is the commonest cause, thin in protein, and GDL especially needs a high-protein milk, so make your own or use an unsweetened milk with at least 8 g protein per 250 ml; otherwise the gypsum settled before the pour, the bowl was stirred afterwards, the milk was too cool (under 80°C), or it had boiled over and scorched. Set but sour is too much GDL; set but grainy or weeping is too much gypsum, or it was cut too soon.
- Shave it into bowls in thin slices with a flat ladle and pour the syrup over. Hot in winter, chilled in summer. Gypsum gives the market-stall bowl, strong in bean flavour and very slightly grainy; GDL gives a silk-smooth, faintly tangy pudding that never falls apart. Both are 豆腐花; choose by the texture you want.
Take care
- Contains soy.
- Food-grade gypsum only, from a food shop, with 食用 or food grade on the packet; never builder's plaster.
- Home-made soy milk must be boiled through, since raw soy milk is not safe to eat; it boils over, so use a tall pot.
The story
豆腐花 is the food of the 涼茶舖, ladled warm from a wooden bucket under a cloth with a spoon of brown sugar, and the market stall's breakfast. HK01's page is the modern argument about it, the gypsum that has made it for a thousand years against the newer GDL, and the Michelin Macau piece and 肥丁's four-coagulant comparison are the two best modern accounts of getting it to set.
Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.