Commonly found in Singapore’s heartlands and neighborhoods are various coffee shops where you can find many individual food stalls selling various kinds of local delicacies under one roof. And a so-called Zhi Char stall is one of such stall commonly found. The name so called is translated from Hokkien which meant 煮炒. And Hotplate Tofu is a widely popular dish you can find from most zhi char stalls locally. Because I enjoyed this dish so much, I even went as far as to get myself a hotplate and attempted the same from home too. Other than the splattering of oil when the hotplate gets heated up of which is not so pleasant, the dish isn’t too difficult to whip up. You can find the original non-vegetarian hotplate tofu from here.
Whilst most hotplate tofu contains minced meat, I attempted with a Vegetarian version over the weekend by having the meat replaced by mashed tofu instead ! The striking resemblance is actually so real that you probably can’t tell much difference till you have tasted it or if you are being told about it.
And no, no flour was being used in the process and it was purely a good old vegetarian Hotplate Tofu, served by a good bout of egg, tofu, carrots and seasoning. And I thought it was really good as it is by this version already ! But if you are attempting for a bigger serving than this, you can always add in some shiitake mushrooms and baby corns to complete the dish further.
So dedicating this dish to all Vegetarians out there, I hope this dish can whet up your appetite and appeal to your taste buds well. Gonna pen down this recipe for my own records purposes too because I am sure I will cook this dish up again.
Vegetarian Hotplate Tofu 斋铁板豆腐
Course: MainCuisine: ChineseDifficulty: Easy2
servings10
minutes25
minutesIngredients
1 stick egg tofu
Some carrots, sliced
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced ginger
2 tsp spicy bean paste 辣豆瓣酱
1/2 tsp light soya sauce
2 tsp sugar
Some cooking oil
Some diced spring onion for garnish
Directions
- Cut half egg tofu into thick chunks and mash up the other half finely using potato masher.
- Heat up some cooking oil and pan fry egg tofu chunks till the edges turn golden brown. Pan fry carrots thereafter.
- Drain and allow the tofu and carrots to rest on paper towels to soak up excess oils.
- Heat up 2 tsp oil and saute garlic and ginger till fragrant.
- Add mashed tofu.
- Followed by spicy bean paste, light soya and sugar.
- Stir and mix well. Off heat.
- Heat up hotplate w a little oil.
- Add beaten eggs.
- When eggs almost set, off heat.
- Add half minced tofu, fried tofu and carrots before topping with balance half minced tofu.
- Garnish with spring onion and serve hot with rice or porridge immediately.
