mapo tofu vegetarian with mushrooms

By foodiva

Ingredients

• 1 pound regular tofu
• 6 middle size shitake mushroom (chopped into small pieces)
• 1 tablespoon Doubanjiang (Broad bean paste)
• 1-inch section shallot white
• 2 cloves garlic chopped
• 1 inch ginger sliced
• 1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn powder
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauces (pay attention not dark soy sauce)
• 3 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon starch (tapioca or corn starch)
• 1 teaspoon salt

Details

Servings 1
Preparation time 15mins
Cooking time 20mins
Adapted from chinasichuanfood.com

Preparation

Step 1

Stir fry

Usually mapo tofu is cooked with minced pork or sometimes with beef. I make this vegetarian version so that the vegetarian foods can also enjoy it. However I replace the meat part with chopped shitake mushrooms. Why I have to do that? Here is the story.

It is recorded that there is a couple who own a restaurant mainly selling vegetarian dishes. The wife also the cook gets some pock (麻子in Chinese)on her face. Her tofu dishes are quite popular among the guests. However some guests told her that they want to eat some meat rather than just tofu. So she bought some beef and cut it to granules and adding the beef into her tofu. Then the tofu dish with beef become more popular and her guests gave the name: Mapo tofu.

So I do not want to make this as a simply tofu dish and the chopped shitake mushroom can bring stronger aroma to the final dish.Ops, in case you may dig further into Chinese tofu, please check my post—

2. Soak the tofu cubes in salted water can make the taste tenderer.

3. When stir-fry the tofu cubes, only

4. I use Sichuan peppercorn powder in this recipe, if you do not have some, replace it with the whole sichuan peppercorns or five-spicy powder.

Now let’s begin to make it.

Prepare the ingredients and cut them as below. Make a water starch for the sauce.

Stir-fry ginger, garlic shallots to stir fry firstly, and then chopped shitake mushrooms.

Add doubanjiang and other seasonings in. Pour in water starch in at the third step.

In order to make the process simpler, in the recipe listed below, I introduce a way of mixing some seasonings including salt and soy sauce and  water starch. You may refer to both ways.

Easy and vegetarian mapo tofu; shitake mushrooms are used to replace meat.

6 middle size shitake mushroom (chopped into small pieces)

Stir Fry Sauce

Cut tofu into squares around 3 cm and chop washed shitake mushrooms. And then slice ginger, chop garlic and cut shallot whites into small sections.

Prepare a container; pour some water with a little amount of salt. Then put the tofu cubes in to soak for about 12 minutes. Then move out and drain.

Prepare a small bowl, mix all of ingredients for sauce and mix evenly. Set aside.(you may add the condiments one by one too, then just make a stir-fry sauce.)

Get a wok and heat up oil; add garlic, ginger and shallots in to stir fry until you can smell the aroma. Add the chopped mushrooms in and stir-fry until soft. Remove the mushrooms to one side of your wok.

Add Doubanjiang and Sichuan peppercorn powder; continue frying.

After 1 minute, get the tofu cubes in and pour in the sauce prepared before to cook for 3 minutes. Toss your wok from time to time. Be gentle during the process and do not break the tofu cubes.

Serve hot. (You can also sprinkle some chopped spring onions)

Chinese Tomato and Egg Stir Fry