31 minutes ago, kayb said:@liuzhou, we may be on opposite sides of the globe, but we were thinking alike when it came to dinner. Brined, roasted chicken, potato salad, sauteed squash with onions. The squash wasn't very good; I think it's so late in the year the skins are getting tough. I suspect I will discard the remaining ones I have in the fridge.
Another recent dinner was my first attempt at ma po tofu. I had no minced pork, so I cubed a pork loin chop in a very small dice and used that. It was a prepared sauce from the international market, but I thought it was quite good. With it, roasted eggplant and squash in a miso-honey sauce, and brown rice. The leftovers will likely go into fried rice.
Well as they say "Great minds think alike." Unfortunately, they also say "Fools seldom differ."
As to your mapo doufu, I think that pre-minced pork in China ( I never buy it) is done less finely than it is done in the UK. Not sure about elsewhere. In fact, meat is rarely minced as such in China. It is always chopped, sometimes theatrically with two cleavers. More like a traditional French haché. I never mince anything. So, your loin chop is possibly more "authentic" than not.
Except, classic Sichuan mapo doufu uses beef. An unusual exception from the pork obsession otherwise displayed. But there are millions of Sichuan people using pork - it's half the price or less.
