Black Sauce Taokua (黑酱油豆干）

I am a taokua lover! I've been eating taokua since I was able to...eat! haha....

In fact, I remember, nearly every meal with my family had taokua, and my favorite is deep-fried. Now a days, too lazy to deep-fry on my own...creates a mess in the kitchen, and I don't know what to do with so much oil left-over?

Anyway, the taokua can be cooked in variety of ways, and i still love to eat. So here is the typical black sauce taokua (again...without the pork, of course!)

Ingredients (Serves 3-4)

- 14 oz (about 400g) fresh taokua

- 9-11 dried shitake mushroom (small-medium size)

- 1 cup raw peanuts (w skin)

- 1/2 tsp five spice powder (五香粉)

- 1 tbp black sauce (黑酱油)

- 1/2 tbp brown sugar

- 6-8 small pieces of taopok (豆卜) - optional

Preparation:

1. Soak peanuts in hot water till water becomes room temperature (this soften the peanuts and can reduce cooking time)
2. Soak dried shitake mushroom for at least 30min. Cut bigger mushrooms into smaller pieces for softer texture.
3. Cut taokua into small pieces of about 1" x 1" x 0.5" (can be square, rectangular or triangluar shapes)
4. Boil 2 rice bowls of water (you can add the water used to soak mushrm for richer flavor).
5. Add peanuts, mushroom, five spice powder, black sauce and brown sugar.
6. Add taokua, and when it boils again, turn to small-medium fire and cook for 1 hour.
7. Add taopok 20mins before fire is turned off (or you can add together with the taokua if you like them very soft)