Mirror-Box Stuffed Tofu 镜箱豆腐
Mirror-Box Stuffed Tofu is featured among the local specialties of Jiangsu.
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Mirror-Box Stuffed Tofu (镜箱豆腐) is a traditional Wuxi (无锡) dish of stuffed tofu blocks, named because the blocks look like the mirror box (a dressing case) a woman used when doing her hair.
Where it comes from
Liu Junying (刘俊英), a chef at the Yingbinlou (迎宾楼) restaurant in Wuxi, created the dish in the 1940s by improving a home dish, fried tofu puffs stuffed with meat (you doufu niang rou, 油豆腐酿肉). He swapped the fried tofu puffs for xiaoxiang doufu (小箱豆腐), a Wuxi speciality tofu, and added shelled shrimp to the meat filling.
The dish was first called jinxiang baiyu xiang (金镶白玉箱), the gold-inlaid white-jade box. During the Cultural Revolution's campaign against the Four Olds (破四旧) a name containing gold was not allowed, so it was changed to the similar-sounding jingxiang, mirror box.
Flavour and texture
Liu's version gives a well-filled centre, neatly shaped blocks and a fine, tender texture. The finished dish is orange-red, fresh, tender and mellow in taste, and combines meat with bean curd.
Questions before you order
What is inside Mirror-Box Stuffed Tofu?
A meat filling with shelled shrimp added, stuffed into blocks of Wuxi small-box tofu.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-25. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.