I love tofu.

It has a bad rap in the States. Although things are chang­ing, tofu is often seen as hip­pie fuel (though tem­peh is thank­fully replac­ing that sta­tus) and a bland, texturally-defiant food­stuff pro­duced in a fac­tory. But we Asians know what good tofu tastes like and how ver­sa­tile it can be, which leads me to nom­i­nate tofu as my favorite food– no joke. As a tes­ta­ment, my embar­rass­ingly juve­nile AIM screen­name is (and always will be) tofubrain13.

Tofu skin (豆腐皮) is one of my favorite vari­eties of tofu, next to puffy fried tofu and reg­u­lar plain silky soft tofu. Often wrapped around logs of gin­gery soy sauce-flavored ground pork, I still squeal with delight if my mother announces her plans to make the dish when I find myself at home.

Up until now, I’ve only seen tofu skin of the super­mar­ket vari­ety– dried into flat sheets, some­times the size of legal paper, not unlike a huge sheet of pasta (think if lasagna pasta came in paper-sized reams). I finally got to see fresh tofu with my own eyes, and even now this pic­ture wants to make me lick the screen.

Once I get my act together, I’ll pro­vide you with a recipe of my mom’s famous wrapped tofu dish. But for now, only my pro­fes­sion for the love of the dish must do…