Ingredients for Kung Pao Tofu

Series Summary

With its hallmark infusions of soy sauce and five spice powder, Asian cooking has been making its way around the world for more than 50 years. In a relatively short amount of time, Asia’s light and delicious rice or noodle-based recipes have become favorites for many non-Asian cultures. While some would say that sharing the recipes to these dishes has led to the adulteration of the true Chinese culinary experience, ultimately the ability for taste to adapt works both ways. Just as people adopt some of the characteristics of their environment, cuisines use the ingredients available around them, traditional or otherwise. Nonetheless, there are fundamental aspects to any ethnic cooking that must be adhered to…otherwise, what would be the point of calling it Asian cuisine?

Are you ready to learn how to make an authentic Asian cuisine? In this free video cooking class, learn how to make a traditional sweet and sour tofu and a Pineapple fried rice dish. Our expert chef will walk you through step-by-step. Learn the ingredients and cooking utensils needed, how to season your wok, how to prepare the ingredients, how to dredge and fry the rice and tips for cooking the tofu and vegetables and how to serve the dish when finished. Try this one out one night this week, in place of that frozen meal in a bag, perhaps. Your taste buds are sure to be pleasantly surprised.

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Chef A.J., and thank you for watching Expert Village. I'm now going to show you how to make a delicious sauce for what I call "Kung Mao Pao Tofu." We're going to start with two cups of vegetable stock in a saucepan. I'm actually going to turn the heat on medium right now. You can buy this in a carton in any natural food store. Actually the regular supermarket carries it now. You could make it yourself. It's kind of labor intensive. And you could also buy it in a powdered form, either vegetable broth or chicken flavored vegetable broth. If you want to save money, you just reconstitute it yourself. But this is very, very convenient. Two cups is half a box. So if you want to use a whole box, double the recipe. Next we're going to add a cup of mirin. What mirin is--it's a rice cooking wine. We are using a little bit of alcohol in this recipe. Now I personally don't drink, but I do cook sometimes with alcohol because it evaporates. So the alcohol gets burned off, but it leaves the flavor. So, again, you can actually find this in a regular supermarket too, any Asian market or natural food store. I like to get the one--sometimes they have things like corn syrup or glucose syrup in it--I like to get the one that is just the wine. Next we add a cup of organic tamari. Tamari is just like soy sauce, but it's wheat-free. Tastes exactly the same. If you don't mind using wheat, just use any soy sauce you like. And a half a cup of dry sherry. You don't have to get the expensive ones for cooking. I just picked up whatever they had at Trader Joe's. I think this bottle was maybe $3. And we're using a half a cup, and it is going to burn off. But it's going to give it a really nice flavor. Next we have chili garlic paste. If you ever order take-out food, a lot of times they give you these little packets. Some are soy sauce, and some have this kind of red stuff in it. And that's usually what they're giving you. And make sure you get one without sulfides. You can get this in the regular store, and also Asian markets. How much you use depends on how spicy you like it. I like it kind of medium to medium-high heat, so I'm using three tablespoons. And I like using this because, traditionally, at least the Kung Pao Tofu always had the whole red chile peppers in it. But I had an experience where once you bite into one, you never want to bite into one again. So at least this gets incorporated into the sauce, and it makes it a little bit more uniform, and it's actually a lot easier."