How to make vegetarian mapo tofu – who needs meat when you have mushrooms? They add all the rich texture you need
- Mapo tofu doesn’t have much meat to start with, and it’s easily replaced by mushrooms
- It’s best to use at least two types of mushroom, and home-made vegetarian stock is preferable; if you haven’t any, make do with a vegetarian dashi bag
Like a lot of people, I am making the effort to eat less meat, especially when dining at home. I’ve never cooked with mock meat, but where I can, I substitute the original protein-rich vegetarian staple of bean curd and mushrooms.
Vegetarian mapo tofu
Mapo tofu was easy to convert into a vegetarian/vegan version, because the original dish had only a scant amount of meat in the first place. I actually prefer mapo tofu without meat, because mushrooms add so much texture.
Use at least two types of mushroom – most of which should have thick stems (I like king oyster mushrooms). Thinner mushrooms – such as cordycep flowers or enoki – should be added towards the end of the cooking process.
This recipe is adapted from one by Sze King-chun, who was chef at an excellent Sichuan restaurant, Bistro Jinli (now closed), in Ap Lei Chau, Hong Kong. The original recipe was published in my first cookbook, A Celebration of Food (2012). If you have home-made vegetarian stock in your fridge or freezer, use that instead of the stock made with a vegetarian dashi bag.
Doubanjiang is Sichuan chilli bean sauce or paste. For the chilli powder, if possible, use the type made of Tianjin chillies. You will need to adjust the amount of chilli powder, peppercorn chilli oil and chilli oil to suit your tastes.
