#omnomnomnivore

[vensosaurus]

[asianadjacent]

麻婆豆腐 aka “Mapo Tofu”

If you’ve eaten Chinese food, whether the white people version of Chinese food, or actual food from Sichuan (it’s a province in China, read a map), you will definitely have come across this famous dish. Despite its popularity on Chinese restaurant menus everywhere, a good version is hard to find as the spice levels are usually toned down to cater for weak palettes (or bowels).

Because this dish is so popular, every household will have their version of how they make it. My mum definitely makes it differently to how I do it and our family isn’t even from the Sichuan province. I can’t even imagine how many versions of this dish and recipes exist.

No matter what the recipe, the core ingredients are Sichuan peppercorns, which gives the dish the numbing sensation and doubanjiang (豆瓣酱), a spicy, fermented broad bean chilli paste that is often used in Sichuan food for seasoning instead of soy sauce. There will be recipes that also include black bean paste but I’ve kept it out of mine for simplicity.

Also, this dish is traditionally cooked with ground pork but I’ve often substituted it with shiitake mushrooms when I want to make it vegetarian or vegan friendly. (You’re welcome)

A good Mapo Tofu dish to me is piping hot, spicy but not kill your grandma spicy, numbing and citrusy, fresh and fragrant - all with a hint of sweetness. It’s not about making it unbearably spicy, it’s about finding the delicate balance between these very dominant ingredients.

To find that balance for your palette, play around with the amounts below to suit your personal taste. If you want more spice, add more chillies or Sichuan peppercorns. Toggle between sweet and savoury with sugar and doubanjiang. If you like it a bit more garlicky, go for it. After all, you’re the one eating the dish at the end of it.

One final note, you must eat this with a bowl (or three) of steamed white rice. You simply cannot enjoy this dish without it. If you serve this with anything else other than rice, you are dead to me. 

Good luck.

麻婆豆腐 aka “Mapo Tofu”

Servings: 4-6 Cooking time: 35 minutes

Ingredients

2-3 tablespoons cooking oil (I used rapeseed oil but sunflower or any other neutral oil will do)

2 teaspoons sesame oil

6-8 dried red chillies (ground)

2 tablespoons Sichuan peppercorns (ground)

1 fresh red chilli (finely diced)

3 cloves garlic (finely diced)

4cm piece of ginger (finely diced)

150g minced pork or shiitake mushrooms (remove the stems and dice the caps)

Splash of Shaoxing wine

2 tablespoons doubanjiang (spicy bean paste)

1 cup water or stock

450g silken or regular tofu (cut into 1 inch cubes)

2-3 teaspoons cornstarch (mixed with 50 ml of cold water)

1 tablespoon sugar (or to taste)

Salt (to taste)

1-2 spring onions for garnish (finely diced)

Preparation

Grind the dried red chillies and Sichuan peppercorns into a spice powder. You can use a mortar and pestle or spice grinder. (I used a spice grinder to be lazy and save time)

Finely dice the red chilli, garlic and ginger, set aside.

Heat up a frying pan with cooking and sesame oils. When oil is hot and shimmering, add the dried red chilli and Sichuan peppercorn spice powder. Once the spice powder has bloomed (when you can smell it in the air) after about 30 seconds, add the fresh red chilli, garlic and ginger. Fry for a minute until fragrant.

Add the minced pork or shiitake to the pan, be sure to season with salt to draw out the moisture. This will help brown the meat or mushrooms. Once brown, deglaze pan with Shaoxing wine (or some water if you don’t have any) and add the doubanjiang. Stir it in well and let it cook for a minute.

Pour 1 cup water or stock and chuck in the sugar. Now you let it all sit and let it all come together for a minute or two just to let the sugar dissolve and for the flavours to develop. Play around with the sugar and salt levels to taste at this stage. If it’s too salty, add more sugar. If too sweet, add a bit more doubanjiang. Additional note: If you don’t have stock or stock cubes and you’re making the vegetarian version of this, take the shiitake stems you removed during prep and add them to a separate pot with water and a bit of salt before you start the rest of the recipe. Bring that to a boil and let it simmer for an instant mushroom stock!) 

When it all tastes right to you, throw in the tofu and stir in the cornstarch mixture. Cook for 3-5 minutes, the cornstarch will thicken up the sauce after a few minutes. If the sauce is looking a bit too thick, add some extra water and cook for slightly longer. When it reaches the consistency you want, add most of the spring onions and toss gently.

Plate it up, garnish with spring onions, extra Sichuan peppercorn powder and sesame oil if you want.

Eat with all the steamed white rice in the world.

Enjoy.

[giographixnola]

The Brain Needs Animal Fat

Why humans can't thrive on plants alone.

This explains a lot of vegans.

[ryrytherynosaur-blog]

@mamawan08 your afritda post made me crave some so I made some myself! #instanomz #getinmybelly #dericious #nomnom #nomz #nomminati #omnomnomnivore #afritada #chicken

[signalite]

Dinner at Rubio's. #septemberselfie #omnomnomnivore #tacoseveryday #tacoyear @rubioscoastalgrill (at Rubio's)

[petermorwood]

I’m not vegetarian but my Mum occasionally dabbled in meatless cooking, we inherited her cookbooks and my fondness for Indian food includes a lot of veggie stuff.

So here’s a vegetarian “chilli con carne”, more correctly a “chilli sin carne” and more accurately a “chilli con dhal” - moong dhal (mung beans) to be exact. Leave out the sour cream under the pickled jalapenos and it’s vegan.

It’s really good, and it happened by accident.

Over the weekend I fancied a curry and went rummaging through the store-cupboard. Hidden right at the back was a Kilner jar full of dried mung beans. They’d been there so long we’d forgotten about them, but the jar was still sealed tight so the usual question arose - “What to do with these?”

I wanted curry, not salad, and @dduane hates beansprouts, so I threw about 500gr (half a pound, or a brimming cupful) into water to soak from mid-morning to evening, though overnight is better. Then I checked the cookbooks and bingo! - Paul Chapman’s “Curry Club Vegetarian Cookbook” had a recipe for “Maushawa” - mung beans, kidney beans, onions, garlic, tomatoes and spices. Google also lists it as Mashawa, Afghan Chili and Lentil Soup and several US-sourced recipes include meat. Lamb (or goat) and chicken may be original, but beef’s probably a US variant.

At first I thought about adding some chicken as well, for a dhansak-y approach, but finally played it straight as per the book. I didn’t need meat for protein and as it turned out, nor mouth-feel either - mung beans don’t disintegrate like red lentils do and these kept a nice al-dente bite. The whole thing, accompanied by basmati rice and minted yogurt, was first class.

DD then said, “Those mung beans would make a great chilli.” She was right: I used the very basic beans-in recipe from Moira Hodgson’s “Hot and Spicy Cookbook” - the first I ever bought, now probably with its own nutrition value after decades of spatters and stains.

I subbed mung beans for beef but otherwise stuck to instructions, and it tasted as good as any chilli I’ve made without Going Special. The best chilli I ever made was with several varieties of dried chilli (ancho, de árbol, guajillo, pasilla and green New Mexico) and hand-diced beef, but that was definitely advanced planning Going Special since the chillies were all bought by post.

This even had a better texture than the usual minced-beef chilli since the cooked mung beans were closer to coarse US “chili grind” beef than our finer UK / Irish mince. The only extra was a spoonful of cocoa powder as in my Pork With Chillies and Chocolate adapted from another Hodgson recipe - bitter chocolate and chilli are friends, like tomatoes and basil.

It will definitely be made again and would probably freeze well, but I can’t confirm, since when I went to set up the photo, what you see is all that remained from enough to feed six (or 2 x 3 times). Not a bad compliment to the chef. :-)

[signalite]

Thanks for all the bday love, my friends. It was a nice low-key day. For obvious reasons, I don’t see many people IRL at the moment, but Mom and sis popped on down to check out the new house and decided in lieu of birthday cake, to just bring the entire pastry case from @fridascafeandbakery #omnomnomnivore https://www.instagram.com/p/CEA0jVUJyio/?igshid=xw6pkzsk1c62

[asianadjacent]

Simplicity and comfort on a plate

Simple, elegant and quick to prepare, spaghetti agilo e olio is the ultimate plate of comfort food. It’s a timeless staple of cucina povera, traditional Italian peasant-style cooking that makes the most out of the fewest ingredients or what little the peasants could afford to buy.

According to quick Internet research, this dish could have originated from the regions of Abruzzo and Campania, but the Italian Academy of Cuisine officially listed spaghetti aglio e olio as a typical dish of Lazio. To be honest, I’m not too fussed about where it comes from, only that it’s delicious and is one of my favourites to make when I’m short on time or ideas.

“Spaghetti agilo e olio” literally means spaghetti with garlic (”agilo”) and oil (”olio”). The core ingredients are spaghetti (or any noodle shaped pasta that’s not too thick), extra virgin olive oil, garlic, chillies (either flakes or fresh), parsley and cheese as an optional garnish.

Because it’s such a simple dish with so few elements, here are a few rules before you start cooking. Or you can take it with a pinch of salt and choose to do whatever you want, it’s your life.

THE RULES

Don’t burn the garlic. There’s no coming back from burnt garlic.

Use the good stuff. There are so few ingredients that you can really taste the difference in quality. So use the best extra virgin olive oil, fresh garlic without the shoots in the cloves, freshly ground black pepper - you get the point.

Prep everything ahead of time before you start cooking. Life passes you by quick when the stoves are on so this will make sure you have it all covered instead of having to still prep the garlic when your pasta is about to finish cooking.

Experiment but don’t get too fancy. Feel free to add things like sun dried tomatoes, olives, anchovies, artichokes, or lemon zest to the recipe. I’ve certainly messed around with this dish countless times but in the end, I always come back to the original. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Spaghetti aglio e olio

Servings: 2 (or 1 starter and 1 main for yourself) Cooking time: 20 minutes (or if I’m really on a roll, I can do this in less than 15 minutes)

Ingredients:

250g of spaghetti (rough rule for pasta is 100g per serving but because this recipe doesn’t really have that many other ingredients, I usually have add a bit extra)

2-4 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly (I fully endorse using four cloves, or more)

Large pinch of chilli flakes, or a thinly sliced fresh chilli (If you want more heat, use more. If you want less heat, use less or devein the fresh chillies)

A generous amount of extra virgin olive oil (I never measure but it’s roughly around 50ml)

Salt

Ground black pepper

Handful of parsley, chopped (or you can substitute with other fresh herbs like basil or chives)

Grated fresh parmesan or pecorino (optional)

Preparation:

Bring a pot of water to a boil, add salt to the water until it tastes like the sea.It will take more salt than you think but taste as you add.  

Once it comes to a boil, add the pasta and cook until al dente. It will usually say how long to cook for on the packaging. If it says 11 minutes to al dente, I usually transfer it to the pan at 10 minutes to finish it off with the cooked garlic and oil to bring it all together. (PS. Use a timer!)

While the pasta is cooking, prep the garlic, parsley, cheese (if using) and chilli flakes. You can do this before you start cooking if you aren’t confident you’ll be able to prep and cook at this in less than 10 minutes.

Add the garlic to a frying pan, pour in the oil and turn the stove up to a medium heat. Add your fresh chillies at this point if you’ve decided to go fresh. Important additional notes: You would usually add garlic after the oil has been heated up in the pan but in this recipe, I usually do the opposite. I actually want the garlic to heat up at the same time as the oil because I think it infuses the oil with more garlic flavour. Also, this step takes place when you have roughly three minutes left on your timer. (Told you a timer would come in handy)

As the garlic is cooking, add the chilli flakes and ground black pepper so it also blooms and becomes fragrant in the oil. You should cook this until the garlic slices are lightly browned, which will take around 2-3 minutes depending on your heat.

When the garlic is at the right level of brown and the oil is a pale gold colour, this is where you transfer the spaghetti directly from the pot to the frying pan with tongs. (This is also the point where timing could be a bit tricky so alternatively, you could cook and drain your spaghetti into a colander while reserving some of the pasta water in case.)

When everything is in the frying pan, add the parsley (reserve a bit for garnish) and toss around the pan for a minute. If it’s looking a bit dry, add some pasta water to thin it out slightly to your preferred consistency. It should look glossy and silky at the end.

Garnish with the reserved parsley and grated cheese. You can add some extra ground pepper to taste if that’s what you want.

Serve and eat.

Eat a second plate.