April 1, 2014 Ma Po Dofu
Ricardo mentioned not having used eggplant to cook at our
dinner last night, so I showed him my Good Food of Szechuan Cookbook and
particularly the recipe for Ma Po Do Fu (“Old Pock-marked Chen’s Tofu),
according to the recipe in the Cookbook.
After working all day on my docketing statement, at 4:30 I checked the
fridge and found that we had ½ of an eggplant, a tray of pork rib steaks
($1.37/lb. at Pros’ Ranch Market, last week’s weekly special), lots of green
chiles, ½ of a yellow onion, a bag of ginger root, and about 10 oz. of tofu
that needed to be eaten before we leave on our trip. So in honor of Ricardo’s interest in cooked
eggplant dishes, I decided to make Ma Po Dofu.
I went to the garden and picked a handful of garlic greens
and chopped them finely. At 5:30 I
decided I needed additional eggplant, so I went to Pro’s Ranch Market and
bought another eggplant ($.99/ each), two mangos (2 for $.99) and three Mexican
Squashes ($.99 for 2 lb.).
When I got home I peeled and diced the eggplant and diced
about 1 ½ lb. of pork and peeled and sliced the ginger into threads and diced
one Anaheim green chili and the one-half onion.
Ma Po Dofu Recipe –
I fetched my bottle of garlic-chili sauce (Talin) from the
fridge and heated about 3 Tbsps. of peanut oil in a wok.
First, I sautéed the pork with about 1 tsp. of the
Garlic-chili sauce until it began to change color from pink to white.
Second, I added the garlic greens (about ½ cup) and ginger
(about three Tbsps.) and green chili (about 1/3 cup) and sautéed that for a
minute or two.
Third, I added the large bowl of eggplant cubes (about 1 ½
lbs.), which fully filled the wok and stir fried the mixture for about fifteen
minutes until the vegetables started to soften.
The mixture started to stick so I
added about 2 Tbsps. of Chinese Cooking wine, 1 Tbsp. of Tamari soy sauce and 1
tsp. of sesame oil (Talin) to the mixture in the wok.
Suzette arrived at this time (about 7:00 p.m.) from her long
day in Santa Rosa and was happy to see that I was cooking dinner because she
was hungry. I said, “I better start some
rice.”
Fourth, I then fetched dried black wood ear threads and
shitake mushrooms from the pantry and soaked 2 Tbsps. of wood ear and five dried
shitake mushrooms (Talin) in 2 cups of hot water and in another 2 up measuring
cup added about 1 tsp. of Knorr’s dehydrated chicken stock to another 2 cups of
hot water to make a broth, which I immediately added to the mixture, which had
cooked down a bit a loosened the bottom from the wok so it would not burn. I then cubed the 10 oz. of tofu and added it
to the wok.
After another ten minutes, I de-stemmed and sliced the
soaked shitake mushrooms into threads and added the mushrooms and wood ear
threads and their soaking liquid to the wok to cover the ingredients.
Tip- The idea is to just cover the ingredients so they will
stew together and exchange their flavors while reducing the liquid to thicken
the sauce.
I then filled the 2 cup measuring cup in which I had made
the chicken stock, which still had about ½ tsp. of chicken stock solids and
salt in it, and started it boiling in a sauce pan for the rice. After the water came to a boil, I added 1 cup
of rice and covered the pan, reduced the heat and set the timer for 30 minutes.
I did not cover the wok, so the sauce would continue to reduce.
Fifth, I then diced four scallions into ringlets (about 1/4
cup) to garnish and add a bit of onion flavor and color to the dish (the recipe
also calls for garnishing with Szechuan pepper corns, but it is time-consuming
to peel the pepper corn husks, which are the active ingredient, from their
seeds, so I do not do this when in a hurry).
After the 30 minutes of cooking time for the rice, the Ma Po
Dofu had reduced quite a bit so I made a thickening mixture with only 1 Tbsp.
each of corn starch, tamari and Chinese Cooking wine and a dash of sesame oil
and 2 Tbsps. of water and stirred the thickening mixture into the wok full of
stew.
The consistency of the stew was very stew-like with flecks
of meat and threads of wood ear and cubes of tofu sticking out of the mixture
of mostly collapsed ingredients and cooking liquid. The thickening mixture did not do much good
to make a sauce, but not much thickening was needed because keeping the top off
the mixture in the wok had allowed the liquid to reduce considerably. After about another minute or two, I called
to Suzette that dinner was ready.
I had put a couple of beers into the freezer when I started
the rice, so we had cold beers with our hot Ma Po Dofu. We each laid a scoop of rice on a plate and
covered it with Ma Po Dofu and some of the slightly thickened sauce (Tip – you
do not need to thicken the sauce much because, as in many Chinese dishes, one
uses the sauce of the dish to coat the rice so that the flavorful sauce
combines the dish with the rice into a pleasant combination of textures and
flavors).
It was delicious.
Ricardo, enjoy.
Bon Appétit
