Fairy Tofu Green Leaf Jelly 神豆腐

How it is made

The raw material is the leaf of a plant known locally as the banjiudan leaf (斑鸠蛋叶, 'spotted-dove egg leaf'), botanically named changbing chouhuangjing (长柄臭黄荆), a member of the verbena family. It grows on hillsides, field banks and in mixed woodland across the Wuling Mountains (武陵山区) of southeastern Chongqing, and its leaves are full-grown in summer.

The leaves are picked, washed and rubbed by hand until the green juice runs out. The juice is strained, a coagulant is stirred in, much as gypsum or brine is added to soy milk, and the liquid is left for some minutes until it sets like jelly. It is then cut into small squares and seasoned. The Qianjiang government gives the coagulant as filtered plant-ash water (草木灰水). The dose is hard to judge: too much makes the jelly coarse, too little and it does not set, so few people master the craft.

Flavour and texture

Qianjiang describes it as emerald green, clear as a gem and smooth as jelly, with a clean fragrance, and treats it as a summer food that relieves the heat. The Chongqing local chronicles office adds that it looks like tofu but is more tender and more translucent. Its water content is over 95 per cent, which is why it does not keep well.

How it is eaten

The district lists Shihui Town (石会镇) in Qianjiang as the main production area and May to October as the harvest season, and says the jelly is stored chilled. It is dressed cold (凉拌): hot and numbing (麻辣), hot and sour (酸辣), or sweet as a dessert.

Where it comes from

According to a story recorded by the chronicles office, the food dates to the Hongwu reign of the Ming dynasty, when famine in Shaanxi, Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan drove people to eat wild plants and leaves, and someone processing banjiudan leaves ended up with a tofu. The first coagulant was the ash left from incense burned in temples, which gave it the name Fairy Tofu (神仙豆腐). Temple ash was scarce, so people later burned baixiang cypress (柏香树) and used the settled ash water, but that jelly soon turned back to liquid; later cooks added edible ingredients, kept as a secret recipe, that made it firmer and longer-lasting.

Its folk names include Guanyin Tofu (观音豆腐) and Banjiu Tofu (斑鸠豆腐). In April 2011 the Chongqing municipal government put the making technique of Qianjiang Banjiudan Leaf Green Tofu (黔江斑鸠蛋树叶绿豆腐制作技艺) on its third list of municipal-level intangible cultural heritage items.

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