On Hand Ma Po Tofu

I was at the Asian market and feeling oh so Asian - well, I'm Chinese. But, I often do not feel Chinese or Asian. Anyway, I walked by the produce area and there was an assortment of tofus of all different types - more than you can ever dream of. My Asian cooking is minimal at best and it's been awhile since I made anything.

Anyway, I had some lean ground pork at home as well as onions. I bought some siriachi sauce, some firm tofu and figured I could make a one of my past favorite dishes, MaPo Tofu. My mom taught me years ago to make this dish, but use an already prepared sauce for it.

Since I purposefully did not buy any sauce for it, I decided to scour my kitchen for any semblance of anything remotely okay for this dish. I found some spicy Sichuan sauce, read the ingredients. It did have a bean paste in it, so this is not a completely starchless meal, but I did reduce the starches. It also had some soy based stuff, but the rest of the other ingredients were paleo friendly.

However, I will try to come up with a sauce that resembles the sichuan bean paste that doesn't use beans or any starch to make this completely paleo friendly. Will update when I figure this out.

Here is what I came up with:

Serves 4
Prep Time: 5 min.
Cooking Time: 25 min.

Ingredients:

3/4 lb lean ground pork (you can use chicken or turkey, too)
1 lb of firm tofu
1 bunch of green onions
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbspns sesame oil
3 oz Sichuan bean sauce
a couple squirts of siriachi sauce (hot chili paste sauce)
1/3 cup water
2 Tbspns coconut flour

Directions:

Cook ground pork on medium high, breaking up into chunks. Make sure you cook meat until well done, especially pork.
Thinly slice the bunch of onions. I even include the tops.
Cut a slit in the tofu container over the sink (don't do what I did) and pour out the liquid into the sink, not all over the floor and table.
Cut this block of tofu into cubes. I basically slice it twice long ways than a bunch of squares on top. It'll turn out looking like diced cubes.
Once the pork is done and all your stuff is cut, add the sesame oil, the siriachi sauce, the sichuan bean sauce, garlic.
Stir until all the seasonings are evenly distributed. Now you want to make a thickener. I don't use cornstarch, but you can use water and coconut flour. Using a fork, just whisk this until it starts to thicken.
Stir this thickener into the meat & sauce.
Add the tofu cubes.
Stir GENTLY, as the cubes will break up if you are too rough with them.
Add the green onions and gently stir. Reduce heat to low and cover for 5-10 min.
Serve over Cauli-Rice.