Hotplate Egg Tofu Omelette

How to make Hotplate Egg Tofu Omelette, deep fried egg tofu with gravy over eggs on a sizzling hot skillet.

Hotplate Egg Tofu (hotplate beancurd / hotplate tofu) is one of those classic Singapore Chinese hawker zi char dishes that the table would always order! It’s a dish of deep fried, golden brown egg tofu over eggs and topped with the most delicious savoury gravy ever! This is always cooked to order on a hot plate, and served to your table all sizzling and bubbling away.

You can easily recreate this restaurant-style at home, and here’s how.

What is Egg Tofu?

Egg Tofu is a special kind of tofu made with soy milk and eggs. It’s usually sold as tubes but you can find boxed square versions too.

To prepare it from tubes, all you do is cut the middle with a knife with the packaging still on, and then gently squeeze it out. Slice the tofu into equal-sized discs and it’s ready to go.

To cook it for Hotplate Egg Tofu, it will need to be fried first, so the surface turns golden brown and slightly sturdier. Egg tofu is a soft tofu, so it is more fragile and can break easily.

While I would always pan fry instead of deep frying whenever I can at home, this time round deep frying the egg tofu is the way to go. Deep frying it means I minimise contact with the egg tofu so there’s less chances of it breaking apart.

Some tips for deep frying egg tofu:

• Make sure you have enough oil to completely submerge the egg tofu discs.
• Option to blot the egg tofu on some paper towels to remove excess liquid so it fries better. It will also minimise any oil splatter.
• Keep a constant medium to high heat throughout until it turns golden brown.

Can I Pan Fry Egg Tofu instead?

If you want to save some (or lots) of oil, and pan fry this, then all you do is have some oil in the pan, and let it get brown on one side. Gently flip over to the other side and let it finish browning and remove from pan. The middle portion will not brown, but it’s ok.

Can I use Regular Tofu?

Yes! If you can’t find egg tofu, then look for silken tofu or soft tofu. Unlike egg tofu, which has egg to help it brown and fry easily, silken tofu will need a bit of help to fry properly.

1. Coat the silken tofu with a light dusting of cornflour.
2. Then drop the tofu in the hot oil and allow the surface to turn crispy before draining on paper towels.

What is Hotplate for Hotplate Tofu?

In a more generic sense, hot plate is one of those portable cooker device. In this context, hot plate is a heavy based metal – usually cast iron – dish that gets heated up, and then food is poured over and served to your table as is. The food is usually half cooked, and left to finish cooking on your table using just the residual heat of the hot plate.

There are specific hot plates that the restaurants and hawker centres use, but at home you can simply use a cast iron skillet! It’s what I used in this recipe. Any pan that you have that can retain heat will work fine to get that nice, sizzling effect. I used an 8-inch cast iron pan, but this recipe works for a 10-inch cast iron pan too. The brand I use is Lodge, it’s one of the cheapest cast iron pans you can get, but is of amazing quality!

What if you don’t have hot plates or cast iron skillets? No problem. Just use a regular pan. In fact, before I got my cast iron skillet, that was what I did.

In the recipe video, I quickly showed that this works in a regular pan as well. Apart from the sizzling factor, it tastes the absolute same!

Ingredients for Perfect Hotplate Tofu

The reason why this is such a popular dish when dining at zi char restaurants is because of how all-encompassing it is. Meat? Check. Prawns? Check. Veggies? Check. Egg? Check. There are so many elements that come together to create such gorgeous flavours.

Minced Meat: I used minced beef for this recipe, but you can use your mince meat of choice. If you are using mince chicken or pork, I would recommend that you marinate them prior with a dash of soy sauce, pepper and cornstarch. With beef mince, I get very hearty, full flavours without the need of marination, so it’s just my go-to.

Prawns: Prawns or shrimps add that seafood umami element to the dish. It also gives the humble dish a bit of a luxe factor. Some restaurants do not include prawns.

Vegetables: You can use your favourite vegetables for this! I used baby corn and carrots – these are pretty standard vegetables the restaurants would use – but mushrooms, cauliflower and broccoli are used too. I also added baby bok choy or nai bai, for some nice greens.

Chicken Stock: You can use either stock or water for this, but I recommend the stock. The chicken stock truly elevates the dish to restaurant-level yumminess! If you don’t have ready-made stock, not a problem. Cheat by crushing in chicken bouillon stock cubes!

Seasoning: The seasoning here is the magical trifecta of oyster sauce + light soy sauce + dark soy sauce. All pantry staples! If you have fish sauce, I recommend adding a dash of it too. The additional umami is gorgeous.

More recipes like this:

If you love this dish, you will lvoe these as well:

• Black Pepper Beef Stir Fry
• Kung Pao Chicken Stir Fry
• Singapore Cereal Prawns
• Creamy Butter Chicken
• Salted Egg Yolk Calamari
• Pepper Lunch Beef Pepper Rice

Hot Plate Egg Tofu Beancurd

Recipe by Sha

5.0 from 1 vote

Course: Recipes

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

15

minutes

Ingredients

• 160g or 1 tube Egg Tofu, cut into equal discs*

• Oil for deep frying

• Gravy

• 1 Onion or Shallot, sliced

• 1 tsp Garlic, minced

• 1 tsp Ginger, minced

• 100g Beef Mince

• 5 Prawns, peeled

• 2 tbsps Oyster Sauce

• 1 tbsp Light Soy Sauce

• 1 tsp Dark Soy Sauce

• 1 cup Chicken Stock or Water

• 5 Baby Corn

• 1/2 a Carrot, sliced

• A handful of Baby Bok Choy (or leafy vegetables of choice)

• Cornstarch slurry (1 tbsp cornstarch + 3-4 tbsps water)

• 1 tsp Sesame Oil

• ¼ tsp Ground White Pepper

• Hotplate

• 2 eggs, beaten

• What you Need:

• 8-inch Hot Plate or Cast Iron Pan

Directions

• Deep Frying the Egg Tofu
• Cut the egg tofu tube in half, and gently squeeze out the tofu. Slice the egg tofu into equal discs, and lightly blot on paper towels to remove excess moisture.
• Fill a pan with enough oil to deep fry the egg tofu discs. Allow to get hot over medium-high heat.
• Gently lower egg tofu into the oil, and allow to fry until golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels.
• Making the Gravy
• While the egg tofu is deep frying, make the gravy. To a pan, add oil. Once hot, add onion, garlic, ginger and stir fry till fragrant.
• Add in minced meat next and saute until it’s 80% done, before adding prawns next.
• Add oyster sauce, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and stir to combine.
• Once fragrant, add the chicken stock or water next. Stir to incorporate.
• Add carrots and baby corn (or any ‘hard’ vegetables that you are using). Allow this mixture to come to a boil.
• Once the sauce is boiling, add in bok choy, or your leafy vegetable of choice.
• Stir in cornstarch slurry until sauce thickens to a gravy.
• Add final touch of sesame oil and ground pepper. Gravy is done!
• Hotplate Assemble
• In a hotplate, or a cast iron pan or skillet, add oil if needed and allow to get hot.
• Once hot, add in eggs, and allow it to coat the base of the hotplate. Swirl pan so egg lifts onto the sides of the pan.
• Once the bottom is set, but the top still runny, top with the fried egg tofu and pour over the gravy.
• Take it off the heat and serve immediately! Residual heat will continue to cook the egg and heat up the dish.

Notes

• *I only used one tube of egg tofu here, but this recipe is enough for two tubes!

Did you make this recipe?

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