Mapo tofu

Ingredients

• Soft tofu — in 2 cm cubes500 g
• Minced pork150 g
• Doubanjiang2 tbsp
• Fermented black beans — chopped1 tbsp
• Sichuan peppercorns — ground1 tsp
• Garlic3 clove
• Ginger15 g
• Chicken stock250 ml
• Cornflour1 tbsp
• Spring onion3
• Neutral oil3 tbsp

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Slip the tofu into barely simmering salted water for three minutes and drain it gently.

   5 min

2. 2

   Fry the pork until browned and its fat has rendered, then push it aside. Add the doubanjiang and fry for a minute, until the oil turns red.

   6 min

3. 3

   Add the garlic, ginger and black beans, warm for half a minute and pour in the stock. Bring it to the boil.

   2 min

4. 4

   Slide the tofu in and simmer for three minutes without stirring — swirl the pan instead, or the cubes break up.

   3 min

5. 5

   Slake the cornflour in cold water and add it in two goes, letting the sauce come back to the boil each time. Off the heat, scatter over the ground Sichuan pepper and spring onion.

   3 min

About the dish

Mapo tofu is built on two separate sensations: là, the heat of chilli, and má, the numbness of Sichuan pepper. Without the second it is merely spicy, and no longer Sichuanese.

Doubanjiang — fermented broad bean and chilli paste — cannot be substituted. It is fried in oil until the oil turns red: that step is where the colour and the depth come from.

The tofu is warmed in salted water first. It firms up, stops collapsing in the sauce, and loses the raw-bean edge along the way.

Worth knowing

• — Grind the Sichuan pepper right before serving: pre-ground, it loses that vibration within days.
• — Add the cornflour in two or three goes rather than all at once. The sauce comes out glossy and clinging instead of gluey.
• — A vegetarian version works without the pork if dried shiitake go in for the umami.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

380 kcal

Protein

24 g

Fat

26 g

Carbs

12 g

More from China

• Gong bao chicken — Diced chicken with peanuts and dried chillies in a sauce where the vinegar matters more than the sugar.
• Jiaozi dumplings — Pork and cabbage dumplings, fried and then steamed in the same covered pan.
• Yangzhou fried rice — Rice with prawns, ham and egg, where every grain stays separate under a thin film of egg.