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![\"Colorful](\"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/tau-hu-ky-ngu-sac-500.jpg\")
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Many people still think of t\u00e0u h\u1ee7 ky (tofu skin\/yuba) as strictly vegetarian food, but nowadays it is no longer exclusive to those on a meat-free diet. Not only is it highly nutritious, but t\u00e0u h\u1ee7 ky is also incredibly versatile in cooking\u2014available as large sheets, dried strands, fresh tender strands, salted versions, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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M\u1ef9 H\u00f2a craft village is a narrow strip of land squeezed between the H\u1eadu River and the C\u00e1i V\u1ed3n branch, now close to the foot of the C\u1ea7n Th\u01a1 Bridge. The village originated when brothers Ch\u00e2u Ph\u1ea1ch and Ch\u00e2u S\u1ea7m settled here and started the trade. Neighbors saw the potential, learned the craft, and gradually it grew into a full-fledged village profession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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From then on, the locals became accustomed to the distinctive smoky aroma of golden tofu skins and the sight of long strands of t\u00e0u h\u1ee7 ky hanging to dry along the riverbank under the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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![\"Traditional](\"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/4-1200x676-1-1024x577.jpg\")
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Though now widespread, few people know that this dish actually originated from poverty. Legend has it that long ago, a poor family sold soy milk at the market. One day, the husband and wife argued so fiercely that they forgot the pot of milk simmering on the stove, allowing a thick skin to form. The wife, reluctant to waste it, skimmed the skin, hung it to dry on a bamboo pole, and forgot about it. When the family had nothing left to eat, she took the dried skin down and prepared it in hopes of staving off hunger. Unexpectedly, the dried soy skin turned out to be far more delicious than imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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![\"Dried](\"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/3-620x620-3.jpg\")
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That is the folk story. Making professional-grade t\u00e0u h\u1ee7 ky M\u1ef9 H\u00f2a requires much more effort. Soybeans are soaked for about 2 hours until soft, then ground into a fine paste and centrifuged to extract the soy milk. The pure soy milk is poured into pans and heated to form the skin. Typically, 18 pans are arranged in two rows (called a \u201cd\u00e0n\u201d or set), with the number of sets varying by household size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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![\"Tofu](\"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/lang-nghe-tau-hu-ky-tet.jpg\")
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To form the skin, the soy milk in the pan is kept at around 70\u00b0C. For thicker sheets, the skin is left to form longer; for thinner ones, only about 5 minutes. Every 10 minutes, a new skin forms and is skimmed off with a knife, then hung on bamboo poles above the pan to drain. The workers continue until the milk is depleted\u2014the final layer is called \u201cv\u1edbt b\u1eb9\u201d (bottom skin). To produce 1 kg of finished t\u00e0u h\u1ee7 ky (sold for about 95,000 VND), roughly 2.4 kg of fresh soybeans are needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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![\"Golden](\"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/tau-hu-ky-1-1-1024x682.webp\")
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The biggest challenge in making t\u00e0u h\u1ee7 ky M\u1ef9 H\u00f2a is the strong wind season in July, when the water turns murky and the soybeans are poor quality, causing the skin to form slowly and the color to be dull. The best period is from mid-October to April each year, when conditions are ideal for producing high-quality tofu skin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
T\u00e0u h\u1ee7 ky M\u1ef9 H\u00f2a is a famous traditional craft village in the B\u00ecnh Minh area of V\u0129nh Long, with a history of nearly a century. Today, about 34 households continue the trade. In 2013, the village was officially recognized by the National Office of Intellectual Property with the collective trademark \u201cT\u00e0u h\u1ee7 ky M\u1ef9…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[647],"tags":[701,843],"location":[668],"class_list":["post-2385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traditional-craft-villages","tag-lang-nghe-2","tag-my-hoa-binh-minh-2","location-vinh-long"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2385"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2393,"href":"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385\/revisions\/2393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2385"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanhoamientay.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=2385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}