Eggplant, Tofu, & Mushroom Stir-Fry (茄子蘑菇豆腐)
Savor this season's eggplants while you can!
This recipe is largely inspired by an eggplant tofu dish at the Ann Arbor restaurant Evergreen that me and just about everyone I bring to the restaurant love to order. I wanted to see how I could recreate this recipe at home and add my own spin on it based on my knowledge of Cantonese cooking. It’s a delight to bite into so many different textures in this recipe. If you want to make this recipe vegan, just use mushroom oyster sauce.
The ideal eggplant
I’ve always liked eating eggplants, but this was the year I truly fell in love with them. The perfectly-cooked eggplant, to me, has custardy, fragrant insides with beautifully purple skin that gives it a bit of a bite. I struggled to cook them just right before nailing this recipe; they were always too soggy, lacked that custardy texture, or lost their beautiful color in the cooking process. But then, I discovered the best technique for cooking them for stir-fries and curries in one of my cookbooks, A Very Chinese Kitchen by Kevin and Jeffrey Pang, and I haven’t looked back: microwave them, skin-side down, on coffee filters. They come out the perfect texture and maintain their vibrant purple color every time. They’re immediately ready to be incorporated into a larger dish. No finicky deep frying or roasting required!
My favorite varieties of eggplant to use in this recipe and beyond are Asian eggplants and fairytale eggplants. They both have thin skins that lack the bitterness of globe eggplants and are often rich in hues of lavender or bright purple. Cooking fairytale eggplants in particular brings out their intoxicating fragrance. Nightshades are what makes this late summer/early fall season my favorite produce microseason!
Practice a dry-frying technique: Gon1 zin1 (干煎)
In last week’s introduction to dry-frying, I discussed the concept of gon1 zin1, which is a kind of shallow fry employed in Cantonese cooking to produce a golden, lightly crispy exterior on proteins that usually then get dressed in a sweet soy sauce or stir-fried with other ingredients. The crispy exterior adds an obviously mouthwatering texture while also preventing the protein from sticking to the wok or breaking apart during a stir-fry.
This recipe is a chance for you to practice that technique with tofu, which is a bit more forgiving than other proteins like fish. This can be done in a very well-seasoned carbon-steel wok, but since everyone’s woks are different, I think you will find the highest chance of success using a stainless steel wok or pan à la the Leidenfrost effect, so that’s what I use in this recipe. Long story short: always preheat your stainless steel pan or wok to medium heat for a few minutes before using the gon1 zin1 method. Drop a few drops of water into the pan to see if it’s hot enough. If it evaporates immediately, it’s not hot enough. If the drops don’t evaporate and instead slide along the surface, you’re ready to add oil and then the proteins.
the recipe
Ingredients:
1 package of firm or extra firm tofu, 12 oz
12-13 oz Asian or fairytale eggplants (about 3-4 eggplants)
6 oz, or about one bunch, scallions,
4-6 oz, or about a couple handfuls, beech mushrooms, seafood mushrooms, or other medium-sized mushrooms with long stalks
3-4 cloves garlic
1-inch piece of ginger
4-5 Tbsp high-smoke point neutral oil
1/4 cup Shaoxing wine
salt to taste
soy sauce to taste
oyster sauce to taste
Press the tofu: Wrap the tofu in towels or paper towels and place a hefty dish or cutting board on top of it for about an hour to extract some moisture. You could leave this pressed overnight, but it’s not necessary.
Prepare the produce: Chop the eggplants into 2-inch batons that are about an inch in thickness and the scallions into 2-inch pieces. Break apart the mushrooms into individual stalks. Mince the garlic and ginger.
Microwave the eggplants: In a bowl, toss together the eggplant batons with a Tbsp of oil and about a Tbsp salt. Line a microwave-safe plate with opened-up coffee filters or parchment paper. Place the eggplants skin-side down on the filters, being careful not to overlap or overcrowd them (this can be done in batches). Start by microwaving for six minutes, checking afterward to see if their flesh is custardy. If not, microwave them more in two minute increments until you reach the desired texture. They should look a little shriveled.
Pan-fry the tofu: Preheat your stainless steel pan or wok to medium heat. Cut the tofu into approximately 2-inch cubes, pat dry, and sprinkle a little bit of salt onto them. Once the pan/wok is hot enough that drops of water slide on the surface, add a couple Tbsp oil. Gently lower the tofu into the oil, being careful not to overcrowd the pan/wok. Once a golden crust develops on the sides facing the oil, flip over the cubes to brown them on another side. Repeat until all sides have been seared, then remove and set aside on a paper-towel-lined plate.
Stir-fry all the ingredients: Wipe out the oil in the pan/wok you just used or use a clean wok and place on medium heat. Add a couple Tbsp oil, the minced garlic, and the minced ginger. Once it’s fragrant, add the mushrooms and about a teaspoon of salt. After a couple minutes, add the seared tofu, eggplant batons, and scallions. Deglaze with soy sauce and Shaoxing wine (and feel free to do so throughout the process as needed). Add oyster sauce to taste.
Serve!
