This is a dish in two parts, as the title suggests, but I'm going to describe how to cook it using one frying pan. However, if you want to do some boiled rice to serve with it, you'll have another pan to wash up... But who ever said life was easy.
Ingredients
Cutlets:
200-250g of mushrooms
400g of tofu
1 dessertspoon of sesame oil
1 dessertspoon of flour
1 dessertspoon of shelled pumpkin or sunflower seeds
1 clove of garlic
A little salt
Sauce:
1 green pepper
1 small onion
A 3cm piece of root ginger
1 star anise pod
A few crushed black peppercorns
1 rounded dessertspoon of flour
1 large glass of dry white wine
2 large glasses of water
3 dessertspoons of soy sauce
Salt
Oil
Start by chopping the mushrooms and garlic finely and frying them in the sesame oil until the water from the mushrooms has evapourated. Dump the mushrooms into a flat bottomed container and leave to cool for a while and start on the sauce ingredients.
Finely chop the green pepper, onion and root ginger and fry for five minutes in a little oil with the black perpper and anise pod. Add the dry flour and stir for a minute to cook it, before adding the wine water and soy sauce. Season with salt and leave to simmer gently while you return to the cutlets.
Add the tofu, flour, chopped pumpkin or sunflower seeds and a little salt to the mushrooms and mash everything well. Form small cutlets and lay them on a plate. (There's really no need to flour tofu cutlets as they generally hold together well).
The sauce should be ready by now, so pour it out into a serving jug or bowl, cover it and give the frying pan a quick rinse. Heat a little more oil and fry the cutlets on a medium heat for four or five minutes each side. Avoid poking at them while they're cooking - they'll come unstuck from the pan in their own time.
The sauce should still be hot by the time the cutlets are ready and if you're good at keeping everything under control in the kitchen, you might also consider sticking some rice on to cook round about the time you start frying the ingredients for the sauce. If the rice is ready before everything else, leave it covered in the pan until you need it.