We are leaving for Dallas for Thanksgiving this year, so we
are trying to eat all of our PPI dishes.
I ate a PPI noodle soup I made yesterday with PPI Ma Po Dofu and PPI
pork stroganoff from Sunday at around 3:00 p.m. because I was busy preparing documents
for filing until then.
Then I rode ten miles to Montano and back. When Suzette came home she decided to eat
some of the PPI Ma Po Dofu and rice and I finished it off at 7:00 p.m.
after eating a bunch of corn chips. I uncomfortably
overstuffed myself, but that is the danger of having lots of PPIs left near the
time of departure on a trip.
Ma Po Dofu is a dish I make all the time. I bought 3/4 lb. of bulk Italian sweet pork sausage
at Sprouts ($1.99/lb.) on Friday for the dish.
It takes a lot of chopping, so I made it on Saturday evening.
I minced 1 ½ Tbsp. of
ginger root and 1 Tbsp. of garlic and one medium American eggplant and ½ medium
red onion. I sautéed the garlic, ginger
and meat in my wok with 2 Tbsp. of peanut oil with a dash of sesame oil and one
or two large tsps. of chili-garlic sauce.
When the color of the meat changed from red to gray I removed it to a
bowl and added another Tbsp. of peanut oil and the eggplant and onion and stir
fried that about fifteen minutes until it softened. While the vegetables were cooking I sliced
about ½ cup of portabella and white mushrooms and soaked 1 ½ Tbsp. of shredded black
wood ear in three cups of boiling water to which I had added about 2 tsp. of
Knorr dehydrated chicken stock and diced 10 oz. of medium tofu. I added
the mushrooms to the vegetables and stir fried them for another three or four
minutes to take on color. Then I added the
meat back and added the tofu and about three Tbsps. of the new secret
ingredient this time, Szechuen preserved vegetable, and the wood ear and enough
of the chicken stock to just cover the entire surface of the ingredients in the
wok (in this case about 2 ½ cups) and covered the wok and simmered it for about
another twenty minutes to mix the flavors.
During the cooking period we usually make 1 cup of steamed
rice by bringing 2 cups of water to a boil wish ½ tsp. of Knorr’s dehydrated chicken
stock and then add 1 cup of rice and lower the heat o the lowest setting and
cover the pot and cook for thirty minutes.
While the mixture was cooking I made a thickening sauce with
2 Tbsp. of corn starch, a dash of sesame oil and 1 Tbsp. of tamari and ½ Tbsp.
of Mushroom soy and 1 Tbsp. of Chinese rice cooking wine in the remaining ½ cup
of chicken stock. The recipe called for cooking the mixture down for up to an hour so that it reduces into a stew like consistency but I have found that it makes little difference taste wise to do that, so after I think everything is heated and the flavors blended (usually about fifteen to twenty minutes) I add some or all of the thickening sauce and cook the mixture for a couple of minutes to see if it thickens the dish. If it over thickens and gets sticky and slimy, I add more water or stock until it reaches the desired thickness. I like the sauce to coat the rice co it lies on the rice as a sheet of sauce that does not run like water but has a slick sheen and is not to sticky or gummy. It take a bit of judgment to hit this happy medium.
I usually drink beer or tea with Ma Po Dofu. Usually beer in the summer when I can add fresh
chilis to the dish that make the dish spicier and hot tea in the winter when
the dish is not so hot, as it was tonight due to the absence of the fresh
chilis. This is a stew and in Szechwan
it is made with their hot red chilis, so it can be fiery. I have also seen the dish made without chilis
of any kind in Chinese restaurants. So
it is a very variable dish.
The dish is usually garnished with chopped green onions (scallions)
and crushed Szechwan peppercorns.I was introduced to this dish by one of my fellow workers at Pier 1 Imports in the 1970's who loved spicy Chinese food, especially the food of Szechwan. He told me "The Good Food of Szechwan" Cookbook by Robert Delfs, was the best cookbook for Szechwan dishes and it was the first cookbook I sought out and bought.
Here are photos of the cookbook and the recipe.
Before then, my mother had given me several cookbooks, usually as Chanukah or Christmas gifts, including: The Joy of Cooking", "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and the "1000 Recipe Chinese Cook Book" that I recall and my first wok, which I still use over forty-five years later and which I took to Europe when I lived there in 1968 and 1970.
Actually there is funny story surrounding Mother's giving me Simone Beck and Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". I had grown up thinking that everyone ate like we did at home, where my mother cooked gourmet food, was the Culinary advisor to the Junior Women's Club in Fort Worth, was the first food director for the Van Cliburn Piano Competition and later had a cooking school in our home. I learned to cook and think critically about food by osmosis as I helped her prepare her menus in the kitchen after school and we sat around the table after dinner and she solicited our comments regarding the new recipes and menus.
So, when I went to college at University of Texas and began taking my meals in a fraternity house that served very pedestrian food, like Salisbury steak and hamburgers, I found that I could not eat the food because it had none of the flavor and complexities I was used to at home. When I lamented the food situation to my mother, she gave me a copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and told me, "If you want to eat the kind of food we cook at home you will need to learn to cook and this book will teach you." I guess everyone has their Mastering the Art of French Cooking" story, but that is mine. Actually mother was of the same vintage as Julia Child and Simone Beck and was friends with Simone Beck and visited Simone Beck at her compound in the south of France where Julia and Bob Child also had a house.
Bon Appétit
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