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Hi.
It's Angel.
Today I wanted to share with you my famous Chinese macro tofu
dish.
Now, I'm calling it famous because every time I cook it, I
always get rave reviews.
And if you're a finicky meat eater who doesn't normally
like tofu, well, you might be pleasantly surprised,
because this dish is really hearty.
Since we're cooking the sauce from scratch,
we can actually control the level of spiciness.
So we can make it super spicy or mild.
So with that, let's get started.
First, the ingredients.
Start with one pound of lean ground beef.
You can also use ground pork or ground turkey,
but I really like ground beef in this dish.
One block of fresh, soft tofu; two to three stalks
of green onions for garnish; one small or medium-sized
yellow onion; three to five garlic cloves;
and 2 and 1/4 cups of chicken broth for our sauce base.
Two tablespoons of soy sauce-- I'm using low sodium,
but you can use regular as well.
Two heaping tablespoons of black bean garlic sauce.
And for the spiciness, we will be using
two tablespoons of chili sauce.
Feel free to use half as much if you prefer a milder sauce.
And one tablespoon of cane sugar to balance out the spiciness,
and two tablespoons of cornstarch
to thicken the sauce.
Finally, we'll need salt and pepper to taste.
Next, it's prep time.
Cut the tofu into small, bite-size cubes
like this, about a half an inch per piece.
Next, dice your yellow onion into small chunky pieces.
Since I'm using a medium-sized onion,
I'm only going to use half.
If you have a smaller onion, feel
free to use the whole piece.
Next, chop some green onions for garnish.
Finally, mince and peel your garlic cloves.
I've gone ahead to use a garlic mincer, which
helps give that nice, even minced consistency.
Next, let's prep our thickening agent.
Take the cornstarch and in a small bowl,
mix the cornstarch in with a bit of the chicken stock.
Just make sure to mix it completely
so you have a smooth liquid.
Now, let's cook.
Start by preheating your pan on a medium high heat,
and don't forget to turn your fan on.
Once your pan's been preheated, go ahead
and add about a tablespoon of oil to the pan.
You don't need much, because there's already
enough oils from the meat that we're going to be adding.
Now go ahead and add your meat, and stir and break it
up into pieces in the pan.
Once the meat is broken up into pieces,
go ahead and season with your sea salt and pepper to taste.
Next, to give to meat some flavor,
we're going to add our minced garlic.
After that, I like to add half of yellow onions,
reserving the other half for later.
The onions that we just added are for flavor,
while the ones at the end will be saved for crunchy texture.
Next, add two tablespoons or two splashes of your soy sauce,
then the black bean garlic sauce,
and also the chili sauce.
Next, carefully add in your chicken stock.
And finally, the cane sugar.
Stir completely until well-mixed,
then set aside to simmer for five minutes.
So now that I've put the chicken broth in there,
I wanted to share with you guys a little bit of a secret.
So what I want to do is I'm letting it
simmer for about five minutes.
And the reason why I want to let it simmer
is because I want that chicken broth to reduce,
and it's going to have a really nice flavor
after that reduction and the water kind of evaporates.
Trust me on this.
And since you never know if it's going to taste good,
I highly recommend you stop to taste test.
After about five minutes, it's time to thicken the sauce.
Stir in the remaining yellow onions, and then add
in your cornstarch.
Just remember to give the cornstarch mixture a good stir
before adding it in.
Now, quickly stir, which will thicken our sauce.
Once the sauce is thickened up a bit,
go ahead to gently add in our tofu.
Once the tofu is mixed in, you can go ahead and turn off
to heat at this point.
As a final step, mix in the green onions.
I hope you guys have a chance to try this recipe at home.
Please let me know if you like it as much as I do.
And I will see you guys next time!
Bye!
Mmm, it smells so good already!
Thanks for watching.