Stuffed Tofu

I had this dish a very, very long time ago. Our helper fixed it for dinner one time.  She has long left and I have always wondered how it was prepared.  About all the recipes I found online did not look like the one I tasted way back.  So here I go again trying my luck in recreating this dish with the flavors I can still remember.  This could be a vegetarian if you skip the ground meat. The most unusual ingredient in this dish is the Szechuan Mustard  that is available in most Chinese stores.

Ingredients

1 tbsp canned Szechuan Mustard (also called preserved vegetable)

1/2 cup mushrooms, minced

1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon grated ginger

1 teaspoon finely minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

1 cups ground pork, chicken or turkey (optional)

4 pieces extra firm tofu (6 if you not are adding ground meat)

Directions

Rinse the Szechuan mustard very well and pat dry with paper towels. Chop in very small pieces.

Wipe the mushrooms with a damp towel and minced very fine.

Wipe out all the excess moisture in the tofu with paper towels.  Scoop out some tofu from the center of each square tofu.  With a fork, mash the scooped out tofu and set aside.

In a bowl mix all the ingredients together. Put a tablespoon of the mixture in the hollowed out tofu. Pat the filling down carefully.

Arrange the stuffed tofu in a steamer and steam for 10 minutes.

This is an extra step I did to give the dish some color.  After I steamed the stuffed tofu, I removed the excess moisture and pan fried it.  You can stop at steaming but this extra step gives the tofu some crunch and browns the filling.

© 2011 kiddiesplay