Recipe: Perfect Mapo Doufu

Mapo Doufu. Even if you're not keen on tofu, give this mapo tofu a go. It's hot and really strongly flavoured thanks to chilli bean paste, fermented black beans and more. Share on. "Ma" stands for mázi, 麻子, which means pockmarks. "Po" is the first syllable of pópo, 婆婆, which means an old woman or grandma.

It is the essential ingredient for real Szechuan mapo tofu. Real Szechuan doubanjiang is full of flavor after long time of fermentation. You can search it in Asian stores or buy from Amazon. You can cook Mapo Doufu using 12 ingredients and 9 steps. Here is how you cook it.

Ingredients of Mapo Doufu

1. Prepare 1 block of Extra Firm Tofu.
2. It's 225 grams of Ground Pork.
3. You need 1 of Leek.
4. It's 2 of Green Onions.
5. You need 300 ml of Chicken Stock.
6. You need 2 cloves of Garlic.
7. Prepare 1 knob of Ginger.
8. It's 2 tbsp of Sichuan Chili Paste.
9. Prepare 1 tbsp of Soy Sauce.
10. Prepare 2 tbsp of Sake.
11. Prepare 1 1/2 tbsp of Sesame Oil.
12. Prepare of Corn/Potato Starch Slurry.

Mapo doufu, a quick and easy staple of Chinese cuisine, enhances tofu with doubanjiang, or chile-bean paste, Sichuan peppercorns, and pork. This stunning mapo tofu recipe from Helen Graves shows you how to make this classic Sichuan dish. Fiery and deeply savoury, this is a great dish to convert tofu sceptics. This very famous Sichuan dish is also known as 'pock-marked Mother Chen's bean curd' after the woman who reportedly first.

Mapo Doufu step by step

1. Cut Tofu into 1 cm cubes and set aside. Chop green onions and leek and set aside. Grate/Finely chop garlic and ginger and set aside..
2. Using a wok over high heat, add the Sesame oil and wait for it to heat up. Add the garlic and ginger and fry until the garlic is golden and it is very aromatic..
3. Next, add the leek and the ground pork and, while continuously breaking apart the pork and stirring, cook until the pork is done. As an option you can continue cooking until it is crispy..
4. Add the chili paste and stir until combined. As an option you can season now with salt and fresh cracked black pepper and soy sauce..
5. Add the chicken stock and stir. Let it sit until it comes to a boil..
6. Add the sake and soy sauce and stir..
7. Add the tofu and stir. Bring heat down and let it simmer for 5 minutes..
8. Add the slurry and stir until it thickens. Just look and see how much you need. Just add a little at a time..
9. Serve over white rice or by itself, and add green onion as garnish. Enjoy!.

In Japan, Mapo Tofu is called Mabo Dofu and it's written either as 麻婆豆腐 or マーボー豆腐 in Japanese. How did the dish arrive in Japan you might wonder? I mentioned about Chef Chen in my previous post here. He was the culinary hero that brought many popular Chinese recipes to Chinese. Mapo tofu (麻婆豆腐, ma po dou fu) is one of the most popular classic Sichuan dishes.