Tofu Fa with Sweet Peanut Soup

This a recipe for the traditional Taiwanese dessert made with soy milk. Actually it is a soy custard served with sweet peanut soup. It is a lighter version of tofu in terms of texture. This recipe might sound strange for you if you were never been exposed to it. If you are familiar with dim sum, you might have encountered this dessert, but if you have never tried I encourage you to give this a try.

Tofu Fa or toufa…it is a traditional Chinese snack based on soy, like tofu, but much tender and silkier. In Taiwan it is served with cooked peanut soup (sweet), red bean, oatmeal, green beans or a combination of these items, depending of your taste.

Here I have it with a sweet peanut soup…yes, it sounds strange right? Yes, but once you try, might my get addicted to it…like my husband…

I kind of use the short cut, I used the tofu-fa from a box (comes with a package of dry soy powder and gypsum) but if you want you can make your own soy milk and add gypsum, which is a tofu coagulant. Gypsum is used in some brewers and winemakers to adjust the pH.

Some recipes call for gelatin or agar-agar…but these are different from tofu, they are more jelly like, and the texture and consistency are different from tofu.

Going back to tofu-fa, I followed the instructions from the box, please make sure that you add the appropriate amount of water for tofu-fa, otherwise you will end up with regular tofu and not the custard like texture.

Since all the instructions for the tofu-fa in on the box, I will only post the sweet peanut soup…believe it or not, it is very simple, only 2 ingredients, okay, 3 if you count water.

Ingredients:

454 g (1 lb) skinned peanuts Approximately 2 liters of water (8 cups) Sugar to your taste Method:

Wash the peanuts and soak them overnight.

Place the peanuts in a pressure cooker or slow cooker or a thermos cooker with water, which ever you prefer. Cook until the peanuts are soft and almost melting, creamy texture. It will take you a while to reach this texture…be patience it is well worth the wait.

Add sugar to your taste. Simmer until all the sugar is dissolved. Serve warm, cold or over tofu-fa.

If you are adding the peanut soup to the tofu-fa you will need to add more sugar since the tofu-fa does not contain any sugar.

Tofu-fa can be served warm or cold.

If you enjoy this typical Taiwanese dessert, you might want to check on Green Bean and Barley Soup with Mochi Balls.

Did you know that gypsum, the coagulant used to make tofu and its derivatives is mainly calcium sulfate? Calcium sulfate is a mineral used in construction as a plaster, added to cement and to toothpaste as an abrasive compound. It is non- toxic , nevertheless, there are food grading gypsum which is widely used as calcium additive in flour, ice cream, canned cheese and of course tofu.

Thank you for stopping by Color Your Recipes…have a colorful week!