These are minor points of contention though. Dark Chinese Vinegar (陈醋), ½ tsp. If you tried Elaine’s recipe, you can tag @chinasichuanfood on Instagram, or connect on facebook. This does three things: first, the salt water gets out some moisture from the tofu and firms it up. Fin. Serves 4. I can find it on Amazon here. Eh… some, but not much. Toasted of course, to finish it off. If you have neither of those things you can also be a hobo, put them in a plastic bag, and pound em with a hammer (I spent an embarrassingly long quantity of my life doing that). I think the videos are improving! Add the stock, season, and start to simmer. I’m giving a range here because everyone’s everyone’s heat tolerance is a little difference. We want intact cubes of tofu suspended in a thin sauce with a sheen of red oil on the top. The side by side was very interesting! Mapo Tofu Banchan. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. Gypsum tofu tends to be the go-to tofu in Cantonese cuisine (which is why it’s also sometimes called ‘southern tofu’), tender brined tofu is very popular in central China (e.g. That's exactly what I've seen done. 10 mins. If you do it too early you’ll end up with this brackish-black colored sauce instead of the red-oil that we’re looking for. Something like this or this is what I want in a mapo tofu, and what you'll see in good restaurants in Sichuan. (Photo by Angie Cao) Yield: 6 servings. Happy cooking! Simmer everything for ~7 minutes, or until reduced by about one third. Being an old peasant dish, it's very modular. Garnish with green onions and serve over jasmine rice. The flavor profile here is mala - we want Mapo Tofu’s heat to be balanced with the flavor of the Sichuan peppercorn. If not any other ideas to make it vegetarian? Personally, if cooking for people I'd do a some sort of meat dish and a simple veggie dish along side this. If so, just plate and take leave some of the extra sauce that you don’t want in a separate bowl.Then, after a few minutes that red oil – the hongyou - is gunna rise to the top. I’ve been following your posts and videos pretty religiously here for a long time. If not, add in the remainder of the slurry. Press J to jump to the feed. Mapo Tofu Recipe. Of course, I make the dish with two big leeks cut diagonally, so there's still something firm and crunchy in the main bowl. Peanut oil -or- Caiziyou, virgin rapeseed oil -or- Indian mustard seed oil, 5 tbsp. Sichuan Chili Bean Paste, i.e. Mapo Tofu is a popular Chinese dish from Sichuan Province, where spicy food is king and the signature spice of the region––the Sichuan Peppercorn––gives dishes a unique “numbing” effect. In the recipe, we use a ½ teaspoon of really firey stuff from the Guizhou province – usually standard for me would be a teaspoon of normal Chinese chili powder. Heat off, out. Theyre also pretty darn wealthy and respected. Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍酒), ¼ tsp MSG (味精), ¼ tsp white pepper powder (白胡椒粉), ½ tbsp toasted sesame oil (麻油). Turn the heat down to the lowest it could possibly go and add a tablespoon or two of water. Fuschia's great. Add in HALF the slurry. I know mincing the chili bean paste might seem like a weird step, but the good ones are pretty chunky. You’ll know you’re done once you can see little oil splotches on the side of your wok, like this (sorry, I know that pic’s a bit dark). I just re-checked the Serious Eats recipe and it appears I misread the beef amount at first. I just won't claim it to be like the original. Looks like you're using new Reddit on an old browser. Chili flakes (辣椒粉), 2 tbsp. Soft tofu (卤水豆腐/嫩豆腐), 500g. She said they were all pretty spot-on (including the Mapo). Then transfer over to a mortar – or whatever your spice grinding method of choice is – and get into a nice powder. Green garlic (蒜苗) -or- scallions, 1-2 stalks. Be sure to check out the process below on adding the slurry. But we also use standard doubanjiang ,like the one you have seen, to make it. Best of all, it’s quite easy to make at home. pixian doubanjiang is the good way for this dish. So on and so forth. Then, slice down to get one inch strips, and finally cut in the other direction to get one inch cubes. All you need is a few Korean pantry ingredients like gochujang and gochugaru. Allow it to simmer for a couple minutes before we add in the tofu. Post anything related to cooking here, within reason. Slice the green garlic, mince the garlic, mince the ginger, roughly chop the douchi fermented beans, mince the chili bean paste. The oil should be clear again. It was our two year anniversary for the channel, so we wanted to do something sort of special. This is timely, I was going to try making some this weekend. See this picture? Different, but delicious. This is going to be simmering down and reducing away with the tofu cooking inside of it. First, remember that we want it to be a bit soupy, but don’t despair. I make a version of this dish at home based largely on this recipe: http://thewoksoflife.com/2014/03/ma-po-tofu-real-deal/. this fly restaurant in the outskirts of Chengdu. Broccoli Tofu Stir-fry is a flavorful dish featuring shiitake mushrooms. This is where we’re gunna add them in. This is going to be on medium-low heat for a couple minutes (dry pan, no oil of course). But I feel that the CIA managed to make a tofu and vegetable stir fry, and a poor one at that. With mapo tofu, this is eaten with chopsticks in the same manner as a stir-fry, so one of the biggest nightmares would be tofu that breaks down into smaller tiny pieces and is impossible to eat without a spoon. In the West this is usually called Shaoxin Wine. I'm not gunna claim any sort of 'authenticity' there but that's what I would probably do. Mushrooms sound like an idea with a lot of potential. Tofu isn’t meat and if you approach it as meat, you’ll always be disappointed in it. Second, it’ll get out the so-called ‘grassy’ taste from the tofu; and third, it’ll slightly season the tofu. With varied adaptations, some people include a spicy black bean sauce, whereas others stay true to just garlic, ginger, and soy sauce. And for his recipe... it's 100% Kenji to make something way more complicated than it has to be. For this mapo tofu recipe, you’ll need to get a good spicy chili-bean sauce (toban dian). Chen's is also pretty great, I'd recommend going to the original location on Xiyulong st - some of the other locations can be a bit variable. You may be thinking that’s not saying much. We go into a lot of detail on that front in the video, if that’s the sort of thing you’re interested. If you've got a super high heat tolerance so just go up to 2tsp. By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. This is going to be the reguoliangyou (hot pot, cool oil) method, which gives you the chance to break up the mince with your spatula. This is added near the end of cooking. Add in the green garlic. If those ideas don't work for ya, just skip the damn mince. Skip to Recipe Mapo Tofu is a dish that comes from the Sichuan province in China. We believe that it is likely due to the pre-packaged mince that is available in the United States - it's quite dry, and a bit dissimilar to fresh mince. We we using a simple homestyle stock. That school is based in New York. Think of it as like anchovies in a Caesar salad. The sauce is so good. Can't recommend the Chen restaurant enough if you make it to Chengdu. It doesn’t effect much about the flavour. The Queen of Mapo Doufu Recipes~~ Best tofu dish in the world? I love coincidences like this... and it's an awesome recipe, too. Stock (毛汤), 1 cup -or 1 cup water mixed with 1 tsp stock concentrate (鸡汁/瑶柱汁) -or- 1 cup water. Stir the tofu by gently pushing it back and forth with your spatula. Instead, we’ve got three primary styles: gypsum tofu (石膏豆腐, which I’m 98% sure is the same as silken tofu in the West), tender brined tofu (嫩卤水豆腐, which I’m 98% sure is the same as ‘soft tofu’ in the West), and pressed brined tofu (老卤水豆腐, which I’m 98% sure is the same as ‘firm tofu’ in the West). Mapo Tofu is one of my favorite Chinese dishes. Although originating in China, mapo tofu has worked its way into the heart of Japanese food culture. Place the Mapo Tofu in a medium-deep dish or bowl, sprinkle Sichuan pepper powder and chopped scallions over dish and serve immediately. She has an extreme sense of justice and will always step forward to right wrongs. So feel free to have a watch, and if any of you are video aficionados I’d love some feedback. What separates Caiziyou from your usual cold-pressed rapeseed oil? For Cantonese cooking, I'd recommend Kian Lam Kho or Grace Young. If you’re familiar with the book The Professional Chef (great resource, btw), they’ve got a Mapo Tofu recipe in there. Don’t worry it. Easily my favorite video you guys have made. Sichuan peppercorns (花椒), 1 tbsp. Indian mustard seed oil is very similar in taste, also high in erucic acid, but gets around the ban by labelling it as ‘for topical use only’ (wink, wink). You’ll see some home cooks in China shoot out varieties like this or this, which I don’t think is quite right. The major philosophical points of disagreement between the recipes are: (1) I'd probably double the amount of chili bean paste and thus not bother with the chili oil (2) I strongly feel the tofu water should be salted and (3) I'd want to cook the tofu longer to impart more flavor of the sauce into the tofu. Ingredients. As always, first longyau: get your wok piping hot, shut off the heat, add in the oil, and give it a swirl to get a nice non-stick surface. It should be a bit spicy but our goal isn’t to turn your mouth into a fireplace. Not there yet. Fun fact, she's the first westerner to train at Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine, her recipes and techniques are legit. We’re using a really small amount of mince here – the meat is used to flavor the tofu, this isn’t a meat-and-tofu stirfry. Anyone who has ever tried Mapo Tofu, will know why. In the states if you ask for a cheeseburger and get a Patty melt, you'd be grumpy, but overseas, the core ingredients add up to something more or less cheeseburger like. Personally I prefer pork to beef, as beef has a tendency to suck up oil while pork will slightly render out more oil. Add some to your beef if there’s not quite enough. This is awesome, thank you! For ours, we timed it to be 3 and a half minutes in this step. Alternatively, if you can't or don't want to mince by hand, I would fry your mince first, then remove the mince - make sure you have ~3TBSP of oil in the pot after and continue to fry the doubanjiang. Mapo Tofu (or Mapo Doufu) is a classic of Sichuan cuisine and is one of the most popular dishes in China. Pixian Doubanjiang (郫县豆瓣酱), 3 tbsp. But it’s an inferior dish if it’s got a big pile of mince – I mean, who wants to eat ground meat in thick-soup-ish form anyway? Also add in that half teaspoon of dark vinegar, stir and cook for about 30 seconds. You’ll know it’s done once the Sichuan peppercorns are aromatic and leave little oil specks in the wok, as shown here in the video. Alternatively, maybe your sauce is looking way too thick. It's fascinating to me how certain dishes are changed across oceans. At Chen's they're standard IIRC. They like to absorb stuff, so they'd get really flavorful from sitting in that broth. I need these posts in my life constantly. My favorite restaurant is actually this fly restaurant in the outskirts of Chengdu, it's the sort of place where some old grandmothers make a bunch of dishes, you pick up what you want yourself and they'll just calculate your tab at the end. I’m lucky I live close by two of the biggest asian supermarkets in Paris, but if you don’t have chili bean … Since I need an extra bowl of rice whenever I eat mapo tofu, I call it the rice robber (밥 도둑). Make sure it’s not burning, then swap the flame back to medium-low. /r/Cooking is a place for the cooks of reddit and those who want to learn how to cook. Caiziyou is a sort of crude rapeseed oil that’s used extensively in Sichuan cooking. Or just skip the meat perhaps? This blanch in salt water will remove that taste, and also help firm the tofu up a touch. I am going to now call what I make Mapo Tofu-inspired, as it comes out more like ground pork and tofu over rice. Yeah… China doesn’t have the same categorization system. 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