Cantonese Cooking & Traditions

[huiray]

There is also what is called "Kum Chin Tofu" or "Kam Chin Taufu" which means "Gold Coin Tofu". This was one of my favorite tofu preparations ever - and eaten in a very few restaurants (even 30-plus years ago in SE Asia) where they bothered to make it. This was tofu that was broken up into a mash, reformed into balls with egg/other stuff, deep fried and processed further (e.g. boiling in stock) to give fluffy balls of tofu with a golden skin which was cooked with some sort of slightly thickened sauce, such as a crab/seafood sauce or a minced meat sauce, often with egg white drizzled into it to give "ribbons" of white in it as well. YUM YUM.

Here's one video showing one prep of it:

The blurb regarding the video about the stuff not being found in restaurants is INCORRECT, even though it is rare to find it.

(Keith_W, maybe your mix for pei pa tofu was *too wet*? So adding more egg yolk might have made it worse...)

[Will]

Fuchsia Dunlop has a great pipa doufu recipe in her new cookbook "Every Grain of Rice".

I would use some starch (potato starch / cornstarch / whatever) in the mixture. Even without egg, I've successfully fried them, though they do crisp up a little better with the egg.

Edited March 4, 2013 by Will (log)

[florawang]

As it's said, Chi Zai Guangzhou!

 

I am from Sichuan, a province also famous for its delicious dishes along with the pandas and gorgeous natural beauties. We eat a lot spicy food (like hot pot, Ma Po Toufu) in our daily life, yet I still love the great Cantonese food. As a professional linguist for career, last year I visited Guangzhou for an interpretation project and had the opportunity to spend a few days trying out all kinds of dining places in the city. Restaurants, food stalls, Yum Cha (morning tea) houses, I enjoyed a lot.

 

Mi Zhi Cha Shao

Tingzai Porridge

Tangbushuai — Rice Balls Without Fillings

Jiangzhuangnai — Ginger Milk Pudding

Bai Qie Ji - White Cut Chicken

Lu Shui Jin Qian Du

These are among the famous Cantonese food I like very much.

 

An authentic Cantonese chef's goal is to preserve the food's original flavor. Unlike other Chinese styles of cooking such as my Sichuanese style where the cook buries the food in a lot of spices and oil, a Cantonese chef aims to bring out or highlight the original flavor of the vegetable, meat, or fruit. So little spice or sugar is used generally.