October 3, 2017 Lunch – Amerasia. Dinner – Mapo Dofu the easy way

October 3, 2017 Lunch – Amerasia. Dinner – Mapo Dofu the easy way

I ate yogurt with blue berries, milk, and granola. Then Suzette and I drove to the Art Museum to vote at 7:45.

At 11:30 I became hungry, so decided to combine lunch, shopping for food, and a trip to the bank into one loop.  After the bank I drove the one block to Amerasia.  I have been going to Amerasia for 25 years, so am set in my ways by now and order the same two dishes every time.  They are my favorites, they fill me up and I can’t make either one, so I enjoy eating them at Amerasia. The two dishes are Bao Su or pork BBQ filled steamed buns, which I dip into a tangy mixture of soy sauce and red chili paste and the other is deep fried tofu stuffed with black wood ear and chopped shiitake mushrooms cooked in a vegetable broth, which I adore.

Here is a picture.

The stuffed tofu is on the left side and the Baotou su are on the plate 

The reason I went today, was because Willy had brought two lovely rosa Blanca heirloom eggplants someone at work gave him and we decided on our way to vote this morning that I would use the PPI roast pork that Suzette cooked last week and the eggplant to make Mapo Dofu.  Since Mapo Dofu has as ingredients wood ear and shiitake mushrooms I planned to cook them in the manner used by Amerasia for its stuffed tofu and wanted to ask how they cooked their stuffing or at least taste it again to get an idea how to cook it.  So when  owner and server Hyangmi, who has served at and now owns Amerasia during my 25 years if going and knows he by name, walked by pushing her tray of dim sun dishes filled with offerings, I asked her how they cooked the wood ear and mushrooms and she said, “maybe I better not tell you.”

As I sat and absorbed that compliment cloaked in an inscrutable Korean response I took special care to taste the stuffing and broth and decided it was simply dried shitake mushrooms and wood ear simmered in a stock, most likely chicken until they rehydrated and cooked and yielded their natural flavor to the broth.  So after I enjoyed eating my lunch I drove to Jubilation and bought a premier Cru Chablis for $27.00 and did some shopping at Sprouts, where I bought milk, a piece of fresh ginger root, a pound of sea scallops for $9.99, vine tomatoes for $.49/lb., and an eggplant for $.69 and then
drove home.  As soon as I had packed away the groceries and wine I fetched a pot and put about two cups of water in plus a about two T. of black wood ear and a small handful of sliced dried shitake mushrooms and about 1 tsp. of  Knorr dehydrated chicken stock and simmered the pot covered for three or four hours to soften the ingredients.

Suzette came home at 4:30 and we decided to ride to The Nature Center near Candelaria and back.  The ride was wonderful.  We both had good energy and set a strong steady pace without getting tired.  Suzette attributed it to having eaten a bratwurst and Sauerkraut special cooked for the new October menu at the Greenhouse Bistro at 2:30.  I attributed my strength to the dim sun.  Whatever the reason, we are feeling better and have more energy.

When we returned at 5:50 I took a shower and then went to the kitchen.  I assessed the cooking of dinner and realized that since the wood ear, mushrooms, and pork were already cooked that I could shorten the cooking time of the dish considerably.  So I diced the two eggplants which made about three cups and sautéed the eggplant in peanut oil with about two T. of  the fresh ginger root minced and about 1 T. of fresh garlic from our garden until the ingredients softened and cooked together, which took about twenty minutes.  While the eggplant was cooking I cubed about 1 lb. of boneless roast pork and a 19 oz. container of firm tofu.  When the eggplant was cooked, I added the pork and tofu and stirred them in and then added the wood ear and mushrooms and broth to the wok.  I picked out the mushroom slices and cut them into small bite sized pieces.  The wood ear I buy is already sliced into thin strips, which is identical to the preparation used by Amerasia.  We probably both buy it at Talin.  The liquid from the broth was sufficient to almost cover the ingredients in the wok, so I topped off the liquid in the wok so all the ingredients would be in contact with liquid by adding about ¼ cup of Chinese rice cooking wine and about 1 ½ T. of soy sauce.  I decided to Add a diced fresh green Chile that Suzette had brought home from the farmer’s market in Los Lunas.  After all the ingredients were in the wok and stirred and simmering into a stew I let it cook for about ½ hour while I watched TV and drank a cup of tea, although I did make a thickening sauce with about 1 T. each of soy sauce, Chinese rice cooking wine, cornstarch, and oyster sauce dissolved into solution with about ¼ cup of water and poured myself a glass of Belle Vignes Sauvignon Blanc, our new favorite Sauvignon Blanc for under $5.00 at Trader Joe's and sat with Suzette to watch the news, which is all about the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

After ½ hour Suzette went to the kitchen and heated a small container of PPI cooked basmati rice and added the thickening sauce to the ingredients in the wok.  She then placed the warmed rice in a pasta bowl for me and she served herself a bowl of the Mapo Dofu and then I served myself a bowl.

I guess that pre-cooking the dried wood ear and mushrooms and pork saved about ½ hour of prep and cooking time.

It was 7:00 and we noticed that “Discovering your Roots” was on so we turned the TV to PBS and watched an interesting program on the genealogy of Bernie Sanders and Larry David, who both share a German/Central European Ashkenazi ancestry.  The largest population of Ashkenazi Jews is now in the US, about 5 million.  I am an Ashkenazi Jew. I checked Wikipedia and about 90% of the Jews were ashkenazim before the War and after the Nazis killed 5 million Ashkenazim they account for approximately 75% of all Jews now. All American Ashkenazim lost relatives in the Holocaust and Larry David and Bernie were no exception.  Bernie’s uncle was murdered by the Nazis and the officer responsible for his uncle’s murder, was tried and convicted of killing 17,000 Jews and sentenced to life in prison at Nurnberg.

My paternal side emigrated in the 1870’s to the U.S., which Suzette told me was when her family emigrated from Germany to Pennsylvania.  My maternal side of the family emigrated from Minsk, Belarus in 1905.  There were two interesting things revealed about Larry David and Bernie Sanders’ genealogies.  First, Larry David’s paternal side of the family settled in Mobile, Alabama in the 1840’s and Larry David’s great great grandfather fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy along with approximately 3,000 other Jews and he also owned slaves.  At this point in the show Larry David apologized to Louis Gates III, who is black.  Then at the end of the show when analyzing DNA, it was revealed that Larry and Bernie shared enough DNA to make them cousins, who knew.  Bernie’s comment when that fact was revealed was “So that is why he does such a good Bernie Sanders”.

I ate the crispy fried noodles coated with powdered sugar that Hyannis gave me at Amerasia with a cup of tea and then really went off the diet and ate some of the orange bunt cake.  We went to bed a little after 9:00 after watching the September 29 Bill Maher show.

What a fun evening of food and family histories.

Bon Appetit