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this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2024
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I’m from Changsha and I LOOOVE stinky tofu! The best is when you can smell the stall from down the street. So delicious
Last time I was back home in Wuhan my aunt decided to fry some up at home in her poorly ventilated flat and you could smell it for days. Although she also cooked some 臭干子 she bought back from Hunan in the same dinner. 臭豆腐 and 臭干子 in the same meal
Incredible. I mean. A lot. But also. I’m in
I'm going back to Wuhan this weekend because apparently return flights from Sydney is $550 ish AUD at the moment.
I'll have to grab some first thing when I get off the plane.
Well, probably second. First would have to be 热干面
Chouganzi. Enlighten me
In Hunan they have a slightly different variety of stinky tofu that's much firmer and "jerky" like (hence stinky jerky, despite not being made of meat). They're usually a bit thinner
Yeah. The stuff in Guiyang has been the strongest I've smelled so far. In a of places it barely even registers as stinky.
Yeah when it’s made elsewhere they tend to tone it down a lot. And often it’s not as crispy ):
Are you telling me I've reached peak stinky already (barring that carion stuff I ate in Dali)? That would be sad... 😞
Please enlighten my angloid brain, what is stinky tofu?
Fermented tofu. Pungent and somewhat unpleasant odour, good taste, soaks up whatever sauces very well.
It's tofu that has been left to go stinky. Like a good stinky cheese
I regret to inform fellow vegan that stinky tofu is, unfortunately, not vegan. Look what they did to my boy.
To be honest I'm not sure if this one was vegan or not. But as others have said, it can be done vegan.
One of the reasons I posted it in the food sub. I'm sorry, I am weak.
lol no. it's often sold by vegan vendors
Traditionally there's meat in the fermentation brine to impart flavour but can and is often substituted for mushrooms these days.
what kind of stinky tofu are you talking about? the changsha black style? because most other types aren't marinated in some sticky goop before, it's just fermented tofu, and when you buy it fresh it's just regular blocks of tofu, only stinky.
Not only that, the Zhejiang style fermentation liquid traditionally contained {虾皮|xiā pí} shrimp to impart salt and umami flavours, a role that has been largely replaced by mushrooms and/or MSG.
Here's the only English language source I could find for a traditional ingredient list. I'm sure some old family restaurant still uses the old old method but you're unlikely to purchase it by accident in a city street.
i often get stinky tofu from 素食 places and i'd suppose they as well as non-veg vendors source it from the same place.
i'm not very familiar with zhejiang-style, and while i've eaten kilos of changsha-style, most of it has been the cheapest type of street food, mass produced, and i can't imagine they would use expensive ingredients like meat just to marinate a 6-kuai street food (or ever stranger, milk, liquid milk being a specialty drink you have to go to like a walmart to buy)
though when i visited changsha, the stinky tofu they served there sometimes was topped with mince. wtf.
guizhou/yunnan types on the other hand seem like descended from 毛豆腐 rather than something fermented in some animalesque brine. they're wet/sticky on the inside (before cooking) and seem to be just fermented tofu, not soaked/marinated.
taiwanese style is mostly vegan, but sometimes they make a disgusting soup out of intestines and stinky tofu, which is actually properly stinky because it smells like literal shit, while the tofu itself normally is just a bit cheesy
regards, a tofu enjoyer
This goes back to my previous point that traditionally it may not be vegan. The thing about our diversity of culture and climate is that different locations may specialise or adapt a food item to their needs.
If your humidity/temperature of your region don't allow you to successfully ferment tofu safely and consistently every time before electricity, would a brine not be the logical solution? And for some coastal regions in the days before MSG, wouldn't adding dried shrimp (a shelf stable ingredient) to enrich the brine make sense?
Culture is another part of it. I didn't grow up with milk as a common ingredient, but it may be different for other Chinese. Tibetans would probably have (yak) milk on a daily or almost daily basis, Tibetan and Tibet adjacent Chinese may very well have add milk to foods long before Walmart ever existed. Hell, maybe since before The United States of America ever existed. I don't know enough about western Chinese cooking tbh.
But in modernity, adding animal products makes less sense. You're no longer just supplying your village, your product is potentially going to reach Uyghurs, Hui, devout Buddhists, overseas Chinese, etc. Why would you add shrimp skin to the 卤水 brine when MSG is cheaper, halal, vegetarian and doesn't hamstring your export potential? Why brine it at all if temperature and humidity control is trivial in the 21st century?
The light fermented / flavored kind also usually uses milk and meat as part of its flavor. The broth it is marinated in is light and opaque.
Chou doufu is usually soaked in milk and meat early-on. The mass-produced stuff uses an already-fermented sauce that has those ingredients.
I'm sure there are sometimes vegan vendors that specifically source an alternative kind. You can buy the mass produced stuff that is specifically marked vegan if you look for it and I'm sure a vegan vendor either uses that or makes their own.
Though just to check, are the ones you're thinking of specifically vegan rather than a different kind of veggie-focused diet? If you ask a restaurant for items with no meat and no eggs it's pretty easy to get a dish with fish or a meat broth or (egg-containing) mayonnaise, folks are often unfamiliar with the "no animal products" strictness, and not just in China. It's very easy to be told that a food is vegan or vegetarian even though it isn't.
ok i pull up
Damn I wish my country had street food (okay I do love a good taco truck but its not the same)
Yeah man. This cost a quid too. The heavens opened when we were eating and we had to retreat into the tofu stand. I spent an hour in the talking to the chef, eating shit loads of this stuff, before catching a cab to go watch Deadpool. Or as they call it in China: Dead Man and Golden Wolf. The cinema was an IMax and the chairs were massage chairs. Truly the west is a fucking shit hole.
I tried some in a night market in Taipei. Challenging for someone who didn't grow up with it, but given how quickly it was wolfed down by the local hosts, it definitely had that 'comfort food' vibe.
全家福
Nice I'm up for some...
Damn, stinky tofu sounds up my alley.
It's great. Try it as soon as you can. If you are underwhelmed or overwhelmed, remember that it comes in many different styles, all suited to different palettes.
What's a good brand to look for if I'm in the states? I've had fermented bean curd before but not sure if it's the same process.
Sadly I've no idea. I've only ever bought it in China off the street.
This is not financial advice: Sometimes I have tofu in my fridge for too long and it starts to go off. I hate wasting food so I often still cook it. Whilst it might smell rancid before cooking, cut it up and fry the shit out of it, and you've got stinky tofu going.
I'm not responsible if you die
Rofl, I had a tub of tofu turn into a pillow from offgassing and found out that that was why my fridge smelled like a dirty sock mixed with sewage. I def threw it out. I sometimes ferment as a hobby but wasn't even gonna chance it since I have no real way of gauging if it was good lol. I'm mostly sad because it was some expensive super firm high protein bougie tofu I just didn't get around to using yet.
But I guess I could attempt to do my own ferment. I'm gonna look into it.
What should it taste like? If it kills me but the flavor is close I'll be ok with it.
Hard to say. Like tofu is quite subtle, except there is this nassaly quality that his you in the back of the throat depending on how strong it is. The inside of the tofu is very soft and gooey and has lost the smooth consistency that tofu usually has.
does this have that same quality of salty and spicy like lao gan ma? because that stuff is goooood
I've not tried that, but I can say that yes, some varieties are very salty and spicy and delicious
you deffo try some lao gan ma. they have fermented soybean version that rules on white rice or some plain noodles
exactly how stinky?
It really varies. From mild smelly socks, to literal rotting flesh, as I experienced this one time in Dali, Yunnan. I eat and enjoy basically anything, but I hit my limit that one time in Yunnan.
🤔 Is cheese just white people tofu
Having made both I can say that the process is very similar and you can do a lot of the same cool stuff with it. So yeah.
never tried it myself, but people tell me it's like blue cheese (never tried that either lol)