Yong tau foo

Yong tau foo ( also spelled yong tao foo, yong tau fu, or yong tau hu ) is a Chinese soup dish with Hakka origins commonly found in Singapore and Malaysia.

In Malaysia, the Ampang region of Kuala Lumpur is particularly famous for this dish. Essentially the dish originated in the early 1960s by a restaurant called "Chew Kuan" as tofu stuffed with a meat paste of fish and pork, thereby earning the dish its name "Yong Tau Foo," which means "stuffed bean curd." Since then all variety of vegetables and even fried fritters have been similarly stuffed, and the name Yong Tau Foo has thus been used liberally to apply to foods prepared in this manner.

Yong tao foo is essentially a clear consomme soup containing a varied selection of food items including fish balls, crab sticks, bittergourds, cuttlefish, lettuce, ladies fingers, as well as chilis, and various forms of fresh produce, seafood and meats common in Chinese cuisine. Some of these items, such as bittergourd and chilli, are usually filled with fish paste (surimi). The foods are then sliced into bite-size pieces, cooked briefly in boiling water and then served either in broth as soup or with the broth in a separate bowl. The dish can be eaten by itself or with any choice of egg or rice noodles, or bee hoon (rice vermicelli). Another variation of this dish is to serve it with laksa. Essential accompaniments are spicy, vinegary chili sauce, similar to Indonesian sambal oelek, and a distinctive brown sweet noodle sauce or hoisin sauce for dipping.

The dish is popular among health conscious people, who favour vegetable items and avoid meat and oily food.

Hakka Yong Tau Foo
This version, which Hakka claim to be the original, consists of tofu cubes heaped with minced meat (usually pork) and herbs, then fried until golden brown, or sometimes braised. Variations include usage of various oddments including eggplants, shiitake mushrooms, and bitter melon stuffed with the same meat paste. Traditionally, yong tau foo is served in a clear yellow bean stew along with the bitter melon and shiitake variants.