Chaozhou Fermented Tofu Cake

Chaozhou Fermented Tofu Cake

　　　The famous Chaozhou snack, fermented tofu cake, also has an interesting local legend. It is said that during the late Qing Dynasty, a boss named Ding, who ran a small food shop in Chaozhou, was extremely harsh to his workers and often withheld their wages under various pretexts. One year, as the end of the year approached, an elderly master who worked at the cake-making workshop thought about how he hadn’t been paid for several months. With the New Year nearing and fearing he would receive no money at all by year’s end, he grew increasingly angry. One evening after work, the master gathered all the raw materials used for making cakes from the workshop—peanuts, sesame seeds, white pork, garlic, fermented red tofu (南乳), flour, sugar, oil, wine, and so on—and dumped them all into a large vat. He stirred everything vigorously, then packed up and left the boss’s home in frustration. A few days later, Boss Ding couldn’t find the old master anywhere. When the boss’s wife opened the workshop door, she was suddenly hit by a special aroma. The smell turned out to be coming from the vat where the master, out of spite, had dumped all the ingredients as if they were trash. The boss’s wife took the materials from the vat, used them as filling, made them into cakes, and sold them. To her surprise, the business boomed. From then on, the Ding family followed the ingredient proportions found in the vat to make the filling for the cakes. Because the taste of the fermented red tofu was particularly prominent, people began calling these cakes “fermented tofu cakes” (in Chaozhou dialect, 南乳 is also known as 红腐乳 or 红贡腐).

　　　　Main ingredients: Flour, glutinous rice, peanuts, sesame seeds, diced white pork, minced garlic, fermented red tofu, rice wine, powdered sugar

　　　　Preparation method:

　　　　First, let’s introduce how to make the filling for the fermented tofu cake. Steam the glutinous rice until cooked, then grind it into a fine powder—this is called “cake powder.” Roast the peanuts until fragrant, then grind them into fine pieces. Roast the sesame seeds until fragrant. Marinate the white pork in sugar first, then dice it finely. Place the peanuts, sesame seeds, and diced pork in a large bowl, add minced garlic, whole pieces of fermented red tofu, and mix in an appropriate amount of rice wine, powdered sugar, and cake powder. Then add some peanut oil (or lard), stir well, and the filling for the fermented tofu cake is ready.

　　　　Next, let’s talk about how to make the dough for the fermented tofu cake. Mix flour with an appropriate amount of baking soda and edible pure alkali, sift it through a fine sieve, then add oil and sugar oil (sugar oil is made by placing sugar in a pot, adding a small amount of water, and slowly melting it over low heat). Knead vigorously to form the dough.

　　　　Wrap the prepared dough around the filling, use a cookie mold to shape it, brush the surface with egg wash, and bake in the oven for about 5 minutes. Be sure to note that during baking, halfway through you should take the tray out and drizzle a little peanut oil on the bottom of the baking tray. This is similar to adding a bit more oil to the pan when frying.