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Vegan Mapo Eggplant (Mabo Nasu)

This mapo eggplant is completely vegan but still has heat and deep flavour even without meat. You will love it if you are a big fan of spicy food!
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Prep Time 3 hours
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 3 hours 15 minutes
Course Main Course
Cuisine Chinese
Servings 2 people

Equipment

  • 1 Frying pan

Ingredients
  

  • 2 Eggplants
  • 200 g Extra Firm Tofu or Pressed Tofu
  • 1 clove Garlic minced or grated
  • some Ginger minced or grated
  • ¼ tsp Chilli Flakes (optional)
  • 100 ml Sake White Wine works too
  • 100 ml Water
  • 2 tbsp Doubanjiang (Chinese broad bean chilli sauce)
  • 2 tbsp Tianmianjiang (Chinese sweet bean sauce)
  • 2 tbsp Soy Sauce
  • 2 tsp Potato Starch or Corn Starch For thickener
  • 4 tsp Water For thickener
  • some Oil For frying
  • some Sesame Oil For flavour
  • some Steamed Rice ( 150-250g per person)
  • some Green Onion chopped

Instructions
 

For the Pressed Tofu

  • If you use Extra firm tofu, you can skip this process.
    250-300g of tofu will become 200g after pressing.
    Wrap it with a clean tea towel or a piece of kitchen towel and place it on a tray or a plate. Put something heavy such as a saucepan and weigh it down more with cans or jars. Leave it for about 1 hour to press the excess water out as much as possible.
  • Chop your eggplants like the photo below and fry them with some oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat until softened. Then transfer them to a plate, and set them aside.
  • In the same frying pan, heat some oil over medium-high heat and add the tofu, then, fry and scrumble it at the same time. Continue cooking scrambled tofu until excess water has evaporated.
  • Add ginger, garlic, and chili flakes (optional) to the pan, then fry the mixture until fragrant. Then, add doubanjiang and Tianmianjiang.
  • Continue frying the tofu and sauce until the colour has deepened. Pour sake and water into the pan, and cook for about 3 minutes.
  • Mix 2 tsp of potato starch and 4 tsp of water in a small bowl.
    Add the fried eggplants to the pan and cook for a couple of minutes, and turn the heat off. Pour the potato starch water which was prepared earlier into the pan and stir it. Make sure to stir the potato starch water again before adding it to the pan.
  • Turn the heat on to continue cooking for about 2 minutes. Potato starch has to be cooked well to avoid the sauce getting slimy.

To Assemble

  • Prepare 2 bowls of steamed rice, and put the mapo eggplant in each bowl. Sprinkle some chopped green onion on top, and serve immediately!

Notes

  • Other vegetable options are bell peppers, cabbages, leeks, and onions are great with mapo sauce.
  • Substitute for Doubanjiang                                                                              Soy sauce, Miso, Grated Garlic, and Chili Powder = (1 tsp : 1 tbsp : 1/4 tsp : 1 tsp)
  • Substitute for Tianmianjiang                                                                           Sugar, Soy Sauce, Miso = (1/2 tbsp : 1/2 tsp : 1 tbsp)
Keyword Vegan, Easy