This aubergines & tofu in blackbean sauce dish is one of my vegan staples when eating out in a Chinese restaurant. It’s the one tastu dish you can be sure will be meat free as long as they have some tofu available. As an aside, some of these dishes orginate from religious or spiritual traditions in China which is also where monks vegetables comes from. This is because many religious orders – especially Bhudhist ones eschewed the consumption of meat.
Getting the right mix of vegetables, spices and sauce is key though. So although I use a commercially available black bean sauce – usually Blue Dragon – I embellish it with other ingredients. I do this by adding in some fermented black beans, and some fresh ginger to boost the flavour and texture.
I use a firm tofu as opposed to a medium firm tofu. Medium firm is actually quite soft, and would just break up into very small pieces during the cooking process. I like to fry the cubed firm tofu in my Actifry first, with some soy sauce, chilli sauce and garlic powder. This enhances the flavour and texture of the tofu.
You can serve aubergines & tofu in blackbean sauce with long grain brown basmati rice or wholemeal cous cous or even pan fried polenta. Chinese leaves, with beansprouts, fresh ginger, spring onions and Chinese five spice is perfect. However, some steamed cabbage with chilli oil and soy sauce would also compliment the flavours very well. Both of these accompaniments would also boost fibre and vitamin levels too.
I think this would also go nicely with a few spring rolls. Spring rolls can be very easily cooked direct from frozen in a Tefal Actifry. There’s no need to add in any oil, just put them in frozen and cook for 14 minutes or so.
Aubergine in Black Bean Sauce
Equipment
- 1 Mediterranean casserole or large oven proof pan Essential item.
- 1 Tefal Actifry or similar airfryer Not essential, but makes this dish so much quicker and easier.
Ingredients
- 3 medium red/orange peppers 500g
- 1000 g 3 small or 2 large aubergines
- 4 finger chillies – more if you like it hot.
- 500 g firm tofu – a whole pack from a Chinese shop - cubed and fried in Actifry
- 4 packets of black bean sauce (2 serving packs by Blue Dragon or similar)
- 20 g Extra dry black beans fermented soya beans –Chinese supermarket NOT ordinary black/turtle beans
- 450 g onions. (2 medium onions)
- 40 g Good thumb of ginger – nice large piece
- 40 g garlic. (20-40g)
- 40 g Rapeseed oil as necessary
- 2 tsps. of Stock powder
- 1 level tsp onion powder
- 1 level tsp garlic powder
- 1 TBSP of soy sauce
- 1 dash Good dash of chilli sauce
- 1 bunch Spring onions
- 30 g Corriander a small bunch usually
Instructions
- Cut peppers into largish squares – 9 per half pepper approx.) then cook peppers & finely chopped chillies in Actifry for around 10 minutes with ½ green spoon of oil.
- Then cut aubergines lengthways, radially, then into smallish chunks. Fry in the Actifry (or wok) – around 14-15 minutes (whole green spoon of oil) – they need to look pretty well cooked or they will be chewy.
- Then cube the tofu – slice all of the blocks in half so you have 2 large slices, then into 12. Put in Actifry with spoonful of oil, plenty of soy sauce, heaped teaspoon of garlic powder and heaped of onion powder, some chilli sauce too possibly ground ginger and set for 12 minutes.
- Meanwhile slice onions into large squares – (in half, then into 4/5 segments lengthways, then 3 or 4 the other way) and sauté gently in the Mediterranean casserole with the finely diced garlic and ginger until browning nicely.
- When nice and translucent and soft, add in the peppers, chillies, dried black beans and aubergines and cook on lowish heat for 5 minutes stirring
- add in the black bean sauce and possibly a little water if the sauce is very thick. Mix well.
- Then add in tofu a stir some more until nicely mixed. At this stage, you need to add in the stock powder, onion powder etc and adjust the strength of taste to your liking if necessary.
- Add enough water so it’s the right consistency – a fluid but still moderately sticky ensemble – needs enough sauce to blend and to go well with the rice or other accompaniment.
- Put in oven for around 20 - 30 minutes on around 150°C – It may help to brown the aubergines if you uncover the dish at say 150°C for about 10 mins right at the end. Don’t overcook.
Notes
- This is a dish that goes well with stir fried Chinese leaves, beansprouts, spring onions, soy sauce, ginger, garlic & Chinese 5 spice.
- It tastes even better if you keep it for a 7 days in the fridge and re-heat to have again.
- I even like it with hummus!
