Tofu-Skin Parcels 千张包子

Tofu-Skin Parcels (千张包子) are a Huzhou (湖州) snack in which a meat filling is wrapped in qianzhang (千张), a thin soybean sheet, rather than in dough. They are served in a soup with mung-bean vermicelli, and the version sold under the name of Ding Lianfang (丁莲芳) dates from 1878.

Ingredients

The wrapper is qianzhang, also called baiye (百叶), a Huzhou soybean product that China.com.cn describes as thin and tough with a clean bean aroma; it is wound around the filling in several close layers. The traditional Ding Lianfang filling, as the Jiading district government of Shanghai describes it, is lean pork leg meat with dried scallops (干贝) and dried shrimp (开洋). The Tongzhi-era Huzhou Prefecture Gazetteer (湖州府志) of the Qing dynasty already records soybeans being ground to make tofu skin and qianzhang, and mung beans being ground and strained for a starch that could be twisted into strands: the vermicelli (丝粉) that goes into the soup.

How it is eaten

The parcels come in a bowl of vermicelli soup that is white in colour and clear, oily without being greasy, with a long-lasting savoury taste. It comes with specially made chilli oil, rice vinegar and other condiments. Tide News sums up the flavour as salty and savoury, and many Huzhou people grew up eating this bowl as a taste of home.

Where it comes from

Ding Lianfang was a Huzhou street hawker who made his living selling scallions and vegetables. In 1878, the fourth year of the Guangxu reign, he started carrying tofu-skin parcels with vermicelli soup through the streets, and the dish became known for tender meat that is not greasy, a fresh-tasting broth and a white, clear soup. The making technique is a Zhejiang provincial intangible heritage item, and shortly before February 2025 Ding Lianfang was named in Zhejiang's second batch of provincial intangible-heritage workshops. Its flagship shop, fitted out with red lanterns and square eight-seat tables, stands on Yishang Street (衣裳街) in Wuxing District (吴兴区).