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Hakka Style Chinese Stuffed Tofu With Minced Pork and Shrimp

Pan-fried crispy tofu stuffed with an irresistible marinated pork and shrimp blend and braised to perfection, this Hakka-style Chinese stuffed tofu recipe will soon become a family favorite in your household!
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Shiitake mushroom soaking and tofu draining time 2 hours
Total Time 2 hours 30 minutes
Course Lunch, Main Course
Cuisine Chinese
Servings 8 Pieces

Equipment

  • 1 Wok

Ingredients
  

Tofu Ingredients

  • 1 Package Medium firm or firm tofu (Asian brand) 700g
  • 4 Tbsp Cooking oil for pan-frying the tofu

Filling Ingredients

  • 90 g Ground pork
  • 90 g Shrimp approximately 6-7 shrimps
  • 1 Green onion stalk
  • 2 Dried shiitake mushrooms
  • 4 Cloves Minced garlic
  • 2 Slices Ginger

Marinade

  • 1 tsp Light soy sauce
  • 1 tsp Oyster sauce
  • 1/2 tsp White sugar
  • 1/2 tsp White pepper
  • 1 tsp Sesame oil
  • 1 tsp Chinese cooking wine Shaoxing wine
  • 1 tsp Cornstarch
  • 1 tsp Cooking oil

Sauce

  • 1 Tbsp Oyster sauce
  • 1/2 Tbsp Light soy sauce
  • 1/2 Tbsp White sugar
  • 1/2 Cup Water 125ml
  • 1/2 Cup Water used to soak mushrooms 125ml

Cornstarch slurry

  • 1 Tbsp Cornstarch
  • 1 Tbsp Water

Instructions
 

Preparing the shiitake mushrooms:

  • Rinse and wash your dried shiitake mushrooms well
  • Then add them to a bowl and fill it with water to soak the mushrooms. About 2 cups of water is sufficient to soak the mushrooms
  • Let the mushrooms soak in the water for about 1-2 hours
  • After 1-2 hours of soaking the mushrooms, discard the water and soak the mushrooms in water again. I recommend soaking the mushrooms overnight to speed up the process so that you can just use them the very next day
  • While the mushroom is being rehydrated, you can move onto the next step

Preparing the tofu

  • Open a package of tofu and rinse the tofu with water and drain out the water
  • Now let the tofu drain. Let the tofu drain for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour. The more dry the tofu is, the less likely it is to have oil splatter when you fry the tofu
  • Now while the tofu is draining, prepare the filling

Preparing the Filling

  • Start by removing the shells from the shrimp and deveining the shrimp
  • Then mince the shrimp well. An easy way to do this is to use the side of a Chinese cleaver and slap down onto a piece of shrimp while dragging the cleaver in a downward motion. After you are done doing this with all of the shrimp, you can just finely chop the shrimp until it turns into a paste-like texture and set it aside
  • Now take the shiitake mushrooms that were being soaked in water (ideally soaked for at least 1-2 hours before use) and squeeze out all of the water in the mushrooms into the same bowl but DO NOT DISCARD THE WATER USED TO SOAK THE MUSHROOMS
  • Now finely dice the mushrooms and then set them aside
  • Now in a large bowl add in your minced shrimp, ground pork, diced shiitake mushrooms, plus all of the marinade except the cornstarch and cooking oil. Mix everything well together and then add in your cornstarch plus cooking oil to the filling. Give it a good mix using a clockwise or counter-clockwise motion with either some chopsticks, your hand, or a spoon
  • Now scoop up the filling with your hand and then slap it back down into the bowl. Repeat this several times until the filling becomes very sticky-like.
  • Once done, cover the filling with some plastic wrap so that it doesn’t get dry, and then place it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before using

Preparing other ingredients

  • While waiting for your tofu to drain and the filling to marinate, prepare your garlic, ginger, and green onions
  • Mince the garlic and set it aside
  • Remove the skin from the ginger and slice 2 large slices of ginger and set it aside
  • Now chop the green onions into small pieces about 1/4 inch in width and separate the white and green parts and set it aside

Preparing the sauce

  • In a bowl, add in your oyster sauce, light soy sauce, white sugar, water, plus 1/2 a cup of the water used to soak the shiitake mushrooms
  • Mix everything well together and set it aside

Preparing the tofu continued

  • Once the tofu has finished draining, pat it dry with some paper towels
  • Now cut the tofu into pieces ideally with at least 2 1/2 inches in height so that you have some space to put the filling in. My package already pre-cut the tofu into 4 large pieces and I cut them in half to get 8 pieces but this may be different for you depending on what brand you use
  • Once the tofu has been cut into pieces, scoop out the center of the tofu making sure to leave some space on the edges. Scoop out the tofu between 1/3 to 1/2 of the height of the tofu.
  • Now apply some cornstarch into the hole that you created in the tofu. You can just sprinkle a little tiny bit into the hole and then press down with your fingers to make it stick to the tofu
  • Next, add your filling to the hole that you just created until the filling is slightly sticking out of the tofu. I recommend not to overfill the tofu too much otherwise the filling may fall out or the tofu may break
  • Now sprinkle a little bit of cornstarch on the top of the tofu and lightly pat it down with your fingers so that it sticks to the filling. Once done, set the tofu aside

Cooking everything

  • Now heat up a wok on medium heat. Once you start to see smoke coming out of the wok, add in your cooking oil and swirl it around the wok
  • Once the oil is hot enough, add your tofu to the wok with the meat filling facing down towards the wok. This is to ensure that the meat filling gets fully cooked
  • Pan-fry the meat filling side until it is golden brown and then flip it over and pan-fry the opposite side
  • If you want the tofu to be extra crispy then also pan-fry all of the sides of the tofu as well
  • Once done pan-frying the pan-fried stuffed tofu, remove it from the wok and empty out all of the oil
  • Now heat up the wok again on medium-low heat, and add back in about 1 Tbsp of the oil used to pan-fry the tofu
  • Once the oil is hot, add your minced garlic, ginger, and the white part of the green onions into the wok
  • Stir-fry everything for about 30 seconds
  • Now add in the sauce that you prepared earlier
  • Turn up the heat to medium-high now and bring the sauce to a boil while occasionally mixing it
  • Once the sauce comes to a boil, make a cornstarch slurry by combining 1 Tbsp of cornstarch with 1 Tbsp of water. Now while mixing the sauce in the wok, slowly add in the cornstarch slurry to the sauce
  • Once the sauce has thickened up, add back in the pan-fried tofu from earlier
  • Mix everything well together and let it braise for about 1 minute
  • Now add the green onions that you cut earlier back into the wok and mix everything well together
  • Finally, turn off the heat, remove the braised stuffed tofu from the wok along with the sauce, and serve while hot