In Malaysia, the Ampang region of Kuala Lumpur is particularly famous for this dish.
It is ubiquitous in Singapore food courts, too. Essentially the dish originated in the early 1960s
in 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 tau foo is essentially a clear consomme soup containing a varied selection of food items including fish balls, crab sticks, bitter gourds, 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 bitter gourd and chili, are usually filled with fish paste (surimi).
The foods are then sliced into bite-size pieces, cooked briefly in boiling broth and then served either in the broth as soup or with the broth in a separate bowl. The dish is eaten with chopsticks and a soup spoon and can be eaten by itself (served with a bowl of steamed rice) 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 gravy or curry sauce. Essential accompaniments are spicy, vinegary chili sauce, similar to Indonesian sambal oelek, and a distinctive brown sweet bean sauce or hoisin sauce for dipping.
In Malaysia, the Malay Muslims have taken to yong tau foo in a big way. As pork consumption
is prohibited for Muslims, halal yong tau foo is generally soy based or stuffed vegetable fritters
or steamed bean curd with fish paste stuffing.
To prepare the dish, these, a steamed rice-flour roll (similar to that used for chee cheong fun)
and a vegetable called kangkong are boiled to heat and soften them. The food items are drained
and eaten with sprinkled toasted sesame seeds, chili sauce and a hoisin based sauce.
Another version commonly found in Perak state is the soup type where the food items are served
in a broth and provided with chili sauce and hoisin based sauce dipping. Halal yong tau foo
is normally sold by Malay vendors at night markets (pasar malam) and at halal food courts
by non-Muslim vendors.
Ingredient A (fish paste)
1kg mackerel fish (ikan tenggiri) | 600g minced meat |
2 tablespoon corn flour | 1/4 teaspoon white pepper |
Ingredient B (salt water)
1 tablespoon salt mixed with 250ml water
Ingredient C
3 blocks bean curd (half and make a hole) | 10 tau pok (half) |
5 red chillis (remove core) | 5 green chillis (remove core) |
5 ladies fingers (remove core) | 2 egg plants (cut into 2cm thick) |
1 bitter gourd (cut into 1cm thick ring)
Ingredient D (soup)
1,200ml fish stock | half tablespoon soy paste | 1 tablespoon oyster sauce |
1 tablespoon fish sauce | a little of salt
method (fish paste)
Extract fish meat and keep the bone.
Place the fish meat on a chop board, add in minced meat,
corn flour and pepper, mixed well.
Using the back of the chopper pound the fish meat and
adding the salt water regularly until all the salt water used up.
Stuff fish paste into all of the Ingredient C and pan-fry until both sides are golden brown, set aside.
method (soup)
boil the fish bone with 2,000ml water for 40 minutes with lowest heat, set aside.
heat up 1 tablespoon oil, saute minced garlic, soy paste and osyter sauce until fragrant,
add in 1,200ml fish stock, place in stuffed ingredient and bring to boil for 2 minutes,
seasoning with 1 tablespoon fish sauce and a little bit of salt to taste, dish out serve hot.
