The pipa ( Chinese: 琵琶) pronounced as ‘pee-pah’ is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 26. Pipa toufo should resemble the shape of a pipa.

Every time I go outside to have food, admittedly not that often, I always order pipa toufo if it’s in the menu list. I love this dish a lot but I have always shy away from making it as I don’t like the frying bit. However as my old recipe was in the old blog which is lost, it is time to update into this new blog but with hopefully a new look. I wanted to make for some weeks now as I have not been in any eatery places barred once this entire year! (Covid19)

For the past few weeks I was really looking forward to cooking and eating this. Needless to say as you can see from these pics, today I am wearing a huge smile on my face. Recently I have been challenging myself to try and plate Asian food nicely, I am quite happy today with my amateurish attempt. One needs to try in order to learn right?

Actually with age come wisdom? Experiences of cooking thus far enable me to fry these babies with NO SPITTING at all. I tried my ideas today and it worked! So I will share my TIPs

TIP 1 – Steaming the pipa toufo the night before and allowing them to ‘dry’ overnight is helpful in the no spitting department.

TIP – Coating the pipa toufo and letting them rest for 30 minutes before a quick frying is double happiness to NO SPITTING

TIP – I always thought pipa toufo can look better. More like a pipa (琵琶) so I have decided to use a mushroom stalk and some chives. I am wearing a happy smile because it works. Well I think in my eyes my pipa toufo looks more like a pipa

TIP – You may and can change the protein but remember not to liquefied them or your pipa toufo will taste tough. Likewise you can add water chestnuts, spring onions and others. using celery is good too as it gives that extra crunch.

TIP – I used a shimeji mushroom for the pipa look and chives for the pipa strings.

Again use my recipe as a guide, mind my TIPS and own this recipe yourself. Good luck and enjoy cooking.

Disclaimer – Written quickly, if you find any mistakes please poke me as I am lazy to check now.

Some friends have been poking/nagging me to update my blog as it is still missing a lot of recipes from the old blog. I have also not updated this blog for a while. However, though I have been cooking, I just don’t think my daily cooks deserved or needed to be blogged.

Update : TIP – Not only must you not mince your protein and toufo too much you must also DRAIN your toufo well before mixing so your paste is easier to handle and not liquidly.

Once in a while I have a hankering to boil this soup. It brings me down memory lane when my father would take us to this restaurant in the middle of Pandungan Roak, Kuching, Sarawak.

No matter what dishes the parents ordered, there will always be this soup. I guess it is because we, the children love it so much and easier to add to rice and eat as children like soupy rice.

I have been meaning to cook this and i have bought some sweetcorn before I sliced a chunk off my right thumb so I have to wait until now to satisfied my craving and to blog this.

Drinking this, memories of my early teens comes back in flood. My years growing up in Kuching were some of the best times of my life.

A good soup with a balance of sweetness from the fresh sweetcorn kennels and the tasty pork balls with cuttlefish, the fresh ground Sarawak pepper …… happy belly.

I hope those who have not tired before might try this for it’s good and quite tasty.