Recipe of Favorite Healthy Mapo Eggplant with Tofu

Healthy Mapo Eggplant with Tofu. Mapo Eggplant, or what we call Mabo Nasu (麻婆茄子) in Japan, is a delicious stir-fried eggplant dish with ground pork and seasoned with a bold savory sauce. It may remind you of Mapo Tofu, one of the most popular Sichuanese classics. Drain off the excess moisture completely.

Mapo Tofu is one of my favorite Szechuan dishes. I thought I would use eggplant in place of tofu and the results were amazing! We usually eat our Mapo Tofu with some kind of beef, but it's summer and eggplant is in season. You can cook Healthy Mapo Eggplant with Tofu using 19 ingredients and 11 steps. Here is how you achieve it.

Ingredients of Healthy Mapo Eggplant with Tofu

1. You need 3 of Eggplants.
2. It's 1/3 of Carrot.
3. It's 1/2 block of Firm tofu.
4. It's 1/3 of ☆ Japanese leek.
5. You need 1 piece of ☆ Ginger.
6. It's 1 clove of ☆ Garlic.
7. You need 1 of to 2 teaspoons ☆ Doubanjiang.
8. You need 1 dash of ☆ Sansho pepper powder (or sansho peppercorns).
9. You need 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. You need 1 tbsp of ◆ Soy sauce.
13. Prepare 1 tsp of ◆ Oyster sauce.
14. You need 200 ml of ◆ Boiling water.
15. You need 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. It's 1 of Katakuriko slurry.
19. It's 1 of Green onions (to finish).

I actually used a combination of both regular eggplant and Chinese eggplant after picking both up at the Asian market. Chinese eggplant has a thinner skin, fewer seeds, and is a little less bitter with a more delicate flavor than regular eggplant. One of my favorite dishes is mapo tofu, but I absolutely love making that same mapo sauce to go with eggplant for mapo eggplant. I'll admit, mapo eggplant is not the prettiest dish out there but it is full of flavor and uses a classic mapo sauce that envelops the tender eggplant in a savory, spicy, and fragrant way.

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..

Mapo Eggplant Mapo Eggplant is similar to the classic Chinese-influenced mapo tofu dish, but using Asian eggplants instead. My version uses pan fried slices of eggplants, which are added to stir-fried ground pork and seasonings. This easy-to-cook dish ranges in flavors from salty, sour, sweet to spicy. Mabo Dofu is the Japanese take on the traditional Mapo Tofu Chinese dish from Sichuan province. Traditionally, the recipe is made with tofu, ground meat, doubanjiang (fermented bean paste), and Sichuan peppercorns and chilis.