Nanxi Spiced Dried Tofu

Nanxi's spiced dried tofu traces its large-scale production to the Guangxu reign of the Qing dynasty. In 1902, merchant Guo Xiangqing opened a tofu workshop on East Street in Nanxi under the name 'Da Liangxin' (Great Conscience); his meticulous sourcing and rich brine spread the product's reputation across southern Sichuan. By the Republican era the original five-spice variety had expanded to golden-hook shrimp, ham, and other lines recorded in county chronicles. The craft was listed on Sichuan's inaugural provincial intangible cultural heritage register in 2007 and received national geographic-indication protection in 2008. Nanxi has since become one of China's largest dried-tofu production bases, with output valued at over three billion yuan by 2013 and exports reaching more than ten countries.

Pick up a slice and it is surprisingly heavy, faintly glossy, and brick-tinted from the brine. Press a thumbnail in: it pushes back with quiet resilience — this is tofu pressed and dried to the density of a cold cut. Biting through requires real effort, which is the moment the soybean's natural sweetness finally surfaces, chased by the deep layered warmth of star anise and cloves driven into every millimeter by repeated brining. The five-spice version is mellow and savory; the mala version builds toward a spreading lip-numbing finish — the kind that pairs naturally with baijiu or cold beer.

The defining technique is 'triple-brining, triple-roasting' (三卤三烘). After pressing the curd into firm white blocks, they enter a soy-sauce-based brine charged with over thirty aromatics — star anise, cloves, galangal, fennel, cinnamon, black cardamom, white cardamom, and others — then move to a moderate oven to drive off surface moisture. This cycle repeats three times. Each brining pass deepens Maillard reactions at the surface: amino acids from the soy protein and sugars from the brine combine under heat to build the glossy, brick-red flavor crust. Each roasting pass tightens the protein network further, progressively transforming the curd from soft to dense and chewy. The process is enabled by the high water-soluble protein content (at least 34%) of southern Sichuan's autumn soybeans, which gives the curd the structural integrity to survive repeated brining without crumbling.