Chou doufu

As tradition built it

Serves 4 as a snack. Brine overnight or several hours, frying 10 minutes.

Ingredients

The method as the tradition gives it, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them, lead dishes first.

For the brine

• 100 g fermented black beans, boiled down
• 30 g food-grade alkali (or a pinch of bicarbonate as a home approximation)
• shiitake mushroom, winter bamboo shoot, chopped
• to taste salt

To finish

• 8 pieces firm tofu, cut into 4cm cubes
• about 1 litre tea-seed oil (or a neutral vegetable oil), for deep-frying
• about 1/2 tsp of each, per piece chilli oil, light soy sauce, sesame oil, to fill

Method

1. Combine the fermented black beans, food-grade alkali, shiitake mushroom and winter bamboo shoot with salt to taste and bring to a simmer, then cool completely.
2. Submerge the tofu cubes in the cooled brine: roughly 3 to 5 hours in mild weather, up to 6 to 10 hours in cold weather, until the tofu has taken on its characteristic black-brown colour and pungent aroma.
3. Remove, rinse briefly and pat completely dry.
4. Deep-fry in tea-seed oil on a lower heat than usual, around 5 minutes, until the outside is crisp and deep golden while the inside stays soft.
5. Poke a hole in the centre of each piece and fill with a mix of chilli oil, light soy sauce and a few drops of sesame oil.

What a modern chef changes

The crisp shell, engineered for consistency.

Rung 6

Method

1. Dehydrate the brined, rinsed tofu for 30 minutes at a low setting before frying, drawing surface moisture off so the fry itself builds a genuinely crisp shell rather than steaming the exterior in its own residual liquid.
2. Fry in two stages: a lower-temperature fry first to set the crust, then a brief, very hot second fry, in the manner of a good double-fried chip, for a shell that shatters rather than merely crisps.
3. Build the filling sauce in the chinois-strained ferment liquor from the duojiao bench (Rung 1) in place of plain chilli oil, tying the dish's fermented sourness back to the same base running through the rest of the chapter.