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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.