How to Cook Perfect Healthy Mapo Eggplant with Tofu

Healthy Mapo Eggplant with Tofu. Make a trip to the Asian market and make one of your favorite Chinese food dishes at home! I've been cooking a lot and trying new things and you can tell if I've had a productive day by the amount of dirty dishes in my sink. And if we are all (kids included) able to actually eat what I've made for dinner, it's a.

Mapo Tofu is one of my favorite Szechuan dishes. I thought I would use eggplant in place of tofu and the results were amazing! Mapo tofu or mapo doufu is a dish where tofu and ground pork are served in a tasty chili and bean sauce but I was thinking that it would be nice to try replacing the tofu with eggplant and braising it in the sauce until it was nice and tender. You can have Healthy Mapo Eggplant with Tofu using 19 ingredients and 11 steps. Here is how you achieve that.

Ingredients of Healthy Mapo Eggplant with Tofu

1. It's 3 of Eggplants.
2. Prepare 1/3 of Carrot.
3. It's 1/2 block of Firm tofu.
4. Prepare 1/3 of ☆ Japanese leek.
5. It's 1 piece of ☆ Ginger.
6. Prepare 1 clove of ☆ Garlic.
7. Prepare 1 of to 2 teaspoons ☆ Doubanjiang.
8. You need 1 dash of ☆ Sansho pepper powder (or sansho peppercorns).
9. It's 1 tsp of ◆ Chicken soup stock granules.
10. Prepare 1 tbsp of ◆ Sake.
11. It's 1 tbsp of ◆Tian mian jiang (Chinese sweet bean paste).
12. It's 1 tbsp of ◆ Soy sauce.
13. It's 1 tsp of ◆ Oyster sauce.
14. Prepare 200 ml of ◆ Boiling water.
15. It's 1 tbsp of + more to finish Sesame oil.
16. It's 2 tbsp of Vegetable oil.
17. You need 1 tsp of Soy sauce.
18. You need 1 of Katakuriko slurry.
19. You need 1 of Green onions (to finish).

This dish includes a few ingredients that may not be in every pantry but it is well worth the effort. Great recipe for Healthy Mapo Eggplant with Tofu. I wanted to eat some mapo eggplant but didn't have any ground meat! That's when I remembered that there's a method of cooking tofu so that it has the texture of ground meat, so I tried it out to in this version of mapo eggplant.

Healthy Mapo Eggplant with Tofu step by step

1. Wrap the tofu in paper towels, put on a heatproof dish and microwave for 2 minutes. Drain off the excess moisture completely..
2. Cut the eggplant lengthwise into 4 to 8 slices. Soak the slices in water for about 5 minutes then drain well, and pat dry well with paper towels..
3. Finely chop the leek, ginger and garlic. Thinly slice the green onion you'll be using as topping too..
4. Cut the carrot in half lengthwise, then slice thinly diagonally. Combine the ◆ ingredients together..
5. Heat up 1 tablespoon of sesame oil in a wok or frying pan. Add the well drained tofu, and scramble with several cooking chopsticks held together..
6. Keep scrambling and stir-frying the tofu over medium heat, until the texture resembles ground meat. Add 1 teaspoon of soy sauce and stir-fry quickly. Remove from the pan..
7. Wipe out the pan, add some vegetable oil and heat up again. Add the eggplant and stir-fry over medium heat. When the eggplant is wilted and has started to brown, take it out..
8. Heat up the pan again, add all the ☆ ingredients and stir-fry over medium heat. When it's fragrant add the carrot and continue stir-frying..
9. When the carrot has wilted, re-add the cooked tofu and eggplant and stir-fry quickly. Add the combined ◆ ingredients and simmer over low heat for about 2 minutes..
10. When the sauce has reduced a bit, add some katakuriko dissolved in water to thicken the sauce. Swirl in some sesame oil to finish..
11. Transfer to serving plates, top with the green onions and it's done. If you like it more spicy, you can drizzle on some ra-yu spicy sesame oil..

Return tofu to pan and gently stir to coat. Toss the eggplant pieces in the cornstarch mixture to coat, shaking off the excess; set aside. Repeat the process with the tofu. I spotted black pepper tofu on Ottolenghi's* Instagram last week, a fine place to gush over food. The recipe is from Plenty, an excellent cookbook that I happen to have, which means I could make it right away.