Mapo Tofu

11 comments
Mapo Tofu is a popular dish from Szechuan, China. Szechuan is a province well known for its spicy and fragrant dishes, and mapo tofu certainly reflects these two celebrated attributes.



This dish normally calls for silken tofu, but as my husband doesn't really like silken tofu - he thinks it's too slippery to eat, I used a block of firm tofu instead. It still tasted great! I used duck fat collected from my previous duck roasting session to stir fry the garlic and ginger - this gave an extra aromatic kick. If if you don't have duck fat, pork fat or normal cooking oil is fine.

Ingredients
  • 200 gr tofu
  • 200 gr ground pork/beef
  • 2 tbs duck fat or cooking oil
  • 2 tbs chilli oil
  • 1 tbs chilli powder (or more if you like it extra fiery)
  • 1 tbs minced garlic
  • 1 tbs minced ginger
  • 2 tbs chilli-bean paste
  • 2 tbs cooking wine
  • 2 tbs soy sauce
  • 1 tbs fish sauce
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp Szechuan peppercorn powder
  • 1 tbs corn flour (mixed with 1 tbs water)
  • chopped green onions
What to do
  • Heat 2 tbs of duck fat. Add the minced garlic, ginger and ground pork. Stir fry until fragrant. Add cooking wine, soy sauce and fish sauce.
  • Then add tofu, chilli oil, chilli bean paste, chilli powder and sugar.
  • When it boils, add in the corn flour mixture to thicken to sauce.
  • Garnish with chopped green onions and Szechuan peppercorn powder.

You cannot really see the sauce, because it all goes down to the bottom of the pot ;-).


Update
- Spaghetti with Mapo Tofu

My husband suggested to use the mapo tofu from yesterday as a topping for spaghetti. I thought it could be a change from the oh-so-normal spaghetti bolognese, so I decided to try his idea... It was fantastic - I never thought that such an unusual combination could taste so good! After I boiled the spaghetti, I oiled it slightly with duck fat and then added some chopped spring onions before I topped the noodles with the mapo tofu.






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11 comments:

  1. I love Mapo Tofu! My husband also doesn't care for silken tofu, so I usually use medium or firm tofu. Yours look delicious!!!

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  2. I also love Mapo Tofu! But I always try not to add too many ingredients in it (lazy). Yours look so delicious and sounds spicy.

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  3. 做得好正!Super delicious and I love that claypot!

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  4. What a beautiful blog! And I love the idea of duck fat in this dish, the taste must be superb!

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  5. me and my husband both like this a lot! but we cannot find the silky tofu of the Japanese here! and i dont know how to make it that smooth, since i tried to make tofu once, but it came out like the normal one! :(

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  6. looks yummy. I need more rice for such dishes. I prefer firmer tofu to cook with too, easier to handle and has a better bite :D

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  7. 很好吃的麻婆豆腐,你的这道麻婆豆腐配意大利面更特别。

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  8. @ cherry potato - Unfortunately I cannot read Chinese...,so I don't know what you wrote above...;)!

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  9. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    Replies
    1. So sorry, I accidently deleted your comment...! But to answer your question: no, I don't think that replacing cooking wine with balsamic vinegar is a good idea, because they taste completely different. You can use dry sherry instead, and I can imagine sake, white or red wine would do fine too :-) .

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