Mabo Tofu Sauce

Happy Thanksgiving! My car is still in the shop (there is no heat, only full blast air conditioning) but this gave me yet another opportunity to go to downtown Flushing yesterday. I went to the Y and N Chinese Supemarket this time: two blocks north of the Library on the East side of the street.

Although a lot of fun, all in all I have done better on a shop. The buns pictured above, filled with little briquettes of ground pork, were Y and N Brand. Although attractive, they were rather tasteless. There were a variety of other brands to try. I also bought dumplings, which were no where near as good as those bought by the lovely wife at the unnamed dumpling store on Essex Street. In honor of Thanksgiving, I bought sweet potato noodles: I will let you know.



If you are looking for a quick and tasty way to make some Mapo (Mabo) style Tofu, I recommend House Brand Chinese Mabo Tofu Sauce (medium hot). Add a brick of tofu and a little bit of ground beef or pork and cook: in a few minutes its ready. Ironically, the sauce is made in Japan, but is widely available in Chinese markets. I used to get it at the Korean groceries near me, back before they were Best Buys and shoe stores. The lovely wife likes it, and its clearly a guilty pleasure on ChowHound as well.

Regardless of the overall success of this shopping trip it was fun. I have dreams of what a great bun will taste like, and its my goal to find that bun! I am excited about this hunt, but I have a feeling I will be wading through a lot of tasteless, white, starchy fluff in the process. I can live with that, too!