Nai Bai with Golden Pan-Fried Dried Tofu — 奶油白菜炒豆乾

A five-minute Taiwanese home-style stir-fry where golden pan-fried dried tofu meets sweet, crisp-stemmed nai bai — all the aroma comes from shiitake mushrooms, with no scallion, garlic, or ginger anywhere near the wok. 五分鐘就能上桌的台灣家常菜：豆乾煎到金黃，配上清甜的奶油白菜，香氣全靠香菇爆香，不加蔥薑蒜也很好吃。

📹 Watch the Recipe

Recipe by 芭樂媽的家 Qistin Wong TV

🥘 Why This Recipe Works

奶油白菜炒豆乾 (nǎi yóu bái cài chǎo dòu gān) is the kind of dish that looks like nothing much and tastes like far more than the sum of its parts. The name is a small piece of Taiwanese market slang: 奶油白菜 — literally “butter cabbage” — is a pale-stemmed, tender baby bok choy cultivar prized for stems that stay sweet instead of turning bitter. There is no butter in it and no cream sauce anywhere; the name is purely a compliment about how soft and rich the vegetable eats. Paired with 豆乾 (dried tofu), it becomes one of the most common weeknight plates in a Taiwanese home kitchen.

The technique is where the flavor lives. In a Buddhist-vegetarian kitchen, 五辛 — the five pungent vegetables (garlic, onion, scallion, chives, leek) — are off the table, so the usual “garlic and scallion in hot oil” opening move has to be replaced. Qistin’s answer is 香菇 (shiitake): sliced thin and pan-fried until genuinely golden, it releases the same savory, roasted aromatics that a scallion would, with none of the sharpness. This is a classic 素 (vegetarian) kitchen move — mushrooms are the Buddhist cook’s answer to allium.

Then the dried tofu goes in, sliced from a block of pre-braised 手工嫩豆乾, and gets pan-fried until the surface blisters gold. Because it is a 滷豆乾 — already braised, already seasoned — it doesn’t need soy sauce or a long simmer; the frying simply wakes up the marinade and gives it a crisp, Q-tender skin. The nai bai follows in two passes, stems before leaves, so that both end up 軟中帶脆 — soft with a crisp bite — at the same moment. Seasoning is deliberately austere: a teaspoon of salt, a quarter teaspoon of white pepper, 50 cc of water. No soy sauce on green vegetables, ever, in this kitchen.

This version: 7 ingredients, one wok, 5 minutes.

🛒 Ingredients

👨‍🍳 Instructions

Step 1: Wash and separate the nai bai

• Pull the head apart leaf by leaf and rinse three times — the thick stems carry sand and field grit.
• Shake dry, then line the stems up and cut into short 4–5 cm segments. Short is better for lunch boxes and for children.
• Keep the thick stems and the leafy tops in two separate piles; the stems need a head start.

Step 2: Prep the mushrooms and tofu

• Rinse the shiitake well to flush out wood-chip debris, trim the stems, and cut the caps into thin strips.
• Slice the 手工嫩豆乾 into thin rectangles, roughly 3 mm thick.
• Have the salt, white pepper, and 50 cc of water measured and standing by — the stir-fry itself moves in seconds.

Step 3: Bloom the shiitake until golden

• Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat and add the shiitake strips.
• Pan-fry, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms shrink down and turn golden around the edges — this is the whole aroma of the dish forming.
• You should be able to smell them clearly from a step away before you add anything else.

Step 4: Pan-fry the dried tofu

• Push the mushrooms to one side and slide the tofu slices into the oil.
• Let them sit and fry undisturbed until the undersides turn golden, then flip and fry the other side.
• Once both faces are gold, toss everything together — the tofu now smells roasted rather than plain.

Step 5: Stems first, leaves second

• Add the nai bai stems to the wok and toss to soften them for about 30 seconds.
• When the stems are roughly half-cooked, add the leafy tops and toss quickly — they only need a moment.

Step 6: Season, steam, and plate

• Sprinkle in 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp white pepper, then pour the 50 cc of water down the side of the wok.
• Toss fast, then let it bubble for another 30–60 seconds so the flavors merge and the stems go properly tender.
• Taste and adjust, then plate immediately — this is at its best straight from the wok.

💡 Tips & Substitutions

📊 Nutrition

Per serving (serves 2–3 as a side, 2 as a light main)

~150 cal · Protein: 9g · Carbs: 8g · Fat: 9g · Fiber: 3g

Dou Dou (豆豆)

Nai Bai with Golden Pan-Fried Dried Tofu

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Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 5 minutes mins

Total Time 10 minutes mins

Servings: 3 servings

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Taiwanese

Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients

  

For the stir-fry

• 1 bunch (~400g) Nai bai / cream cabbage (奶油白菜) stems and leaves separated
• 3 caps Fresh shiitake mushrooms (香菇) stemmed, cut into strips
• 2 pieces (~120g) Hand-made tender dried tofu (手工嫩豆乾) non-GMO, pre-braised; sliced 3 mm thick
• 2 tbsp Cooking oil (食用油)
• 1 tsp Salt (鹽)
• 1/4 tsp White pepper (胡椒粉)
• 50 cc Water (水)

Method

 

1. Pull the head apart leaf by leaf and rinse three times, since the thick stems hold grit. Line the stems up and cut into short 4-5 cm segments, then keep the thick stems and the leafy tops in two separate piles - the stems need a head start in the wok.
2. Rinse the shiitake well to remove wood-chip debris, trim the stems and cut the caps into thin strips. Slice the dried tofu into 3 mm rectangles and measure out the salt, white pepper and 50 cc of water so everything is ready before the wok gets hot.
3. Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat and add the shiitake strips. Pan-fry, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms shrink down and turn golden around the edges - this is the entire aroma of the dish forming, standing in for garlic and scallion in an allium-free kitchen.
4. Push the mushrooms to one side and slide the tofu slices into the oil. Let them fry undisturbed until the undersides turn golden, flip, and fry the other side. Once both faces are gold, toss everything together.
5. Add the nai bai stems to the wok and toss to soften for about 30 seconds. When the stems are roughly half-cooked, add the leafy tops and toss quickly - they only need a moment.
6. Sprinkle in 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp white pepper, then pour the 50 cc of water down the side of the wok. Toss fast and let it bubble for another 30-60 seconds so the flavors merge and the stems go properly tender, then plate immediately.

Notes

Allium-free (五辛-free), so golden shiitake does the work of garlic and scallion. Use a pre-braised 滷豆乾 if you can find one - it brings its own seasoning. Season greens with salt and white pepper only, never soy sauce.

🌱 Why This Dish

奶油白菜 (nǎi yóu bái cài) is a naming joke that Taiwanese cooks stopped noticing long ago. 奶油 means butter or cream, but there is no dairy in the vegetable — it’s simply a pale-stemmed 小白菜 cultivar so tender and sweet that the market gave it the compliment. 白菜 itself is one of the oldest cultivated greens in China, a staple of northern winters, and this softer southern cousin became the everyday version in Taiwanese households — cheap, mild, and forgiving enough for a weeknight.

The tofu half of the dish carries the heavier cultural weight. 深坑 (Shenkeng, on the outskirts of Taipei) has been making dried tofu for generations, using its pure mountain-spring water, and the district’s 滷豆乾 — braised in soy, star anise, and rock sugar until the blocks turn dark and springy — is a recognized piece of Taiwanese food heritage. Buying a good pre-braised 豆乾, as Qistin does here, is a shortcut the tradition fully endorses: households have always leaned on the tofu maker for the braise and saved their own wok work for the finishing fry.

In Buddhist-vegetarian terms this is textbook 家常素菜 — plain, unshowy, and fully 五辛-free, which makes it shareable with practitioners who avoid alliums. Note that the entire dish is seasoned with salt and white pepper alone. That is a deliberate Taiwanese principle for green vegetables: 吃原型食材本身的味道, let the ingredient taste like itself. Greens get salt, not soy sauce, so their natural sweetness stays bright. Served alongside a heavier braised dish, it is the clean foil on the table — the plate that resets the palate rather than competing for attention.

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