Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Ma Po Tofu (麻婆豆腐)

No, I am not entirely confident that that Chinese is entirely accurate. Give me a break, I have a third grade reading/writing comprehension level. Anyways, my poor Chinese aside, I am not dead. In fact, I've been cooking quite a bit lately, and thanks to my dad, I've been learning a number of household Chinese dishes and general techniques in cooking Chinese food. I suppose now I'm giving away some of my secrets, but I'm sure that you can find most of these in some cookbook so I figure I'd give my own twist to it.

Now this dish is a pretty regular staple of Chinese cooking, and it's actually fairly easy to make, given that, I often cringe a little on the inside whenever someone decides to order it at a restaurant. It's okay, you can order it if you want, but I think you can make it better. This recipe ought to serve a good 3-4 people.

Ingredients:
Ground pork (approx 1/2 lb)
Firm tofu (2 blocks)
1 scallion
1-2 cloves of garlic
2-3 slices of ginger
hot sauce (just go to a Chinese supermarket and ask for hot sauce, if you say you're making mapo tofu I'm sure someone will know what to point you to, my dad likes this brand, note: you can use spicy topan sauce but there are some extra steps, generally it is not really considered super authentic, I've done it before and it works)
sugar
soy sauce
ground pepper (black or white)
sesame oil
corn starch
water (cool to room temp)
cooking oil

I know, it seems like a lot, but you'll find that with Chinese cooking there are just some things you always have lying around, soy sauce, sesame oil, and corn starch among them.

So let's get started:

Directions:

1.) Prepare all the ingredients: cube the tofu, mince the garlic and ginger, dice the scallion, and if you want to be super conscientious, mix together the water, sesame oil, corn starch, and pepper into a small bowl

NOTE: I didn't really specify how much water to use, but in general, I'd say 1/4 cup in approximation, maybe a little less, added with corn starch it makes a kind of roux, so how thick you want the sauce entirely depends on your water to corn starch ratio, everything else is just flavoring and this happens to be a good place to make sure it gets mixed in well

2.) In Chinese there's a process called 爆香 (again not confident on my Chinese) which essentially means to quickly stir the aromatics (garlic and ginger) in hot oil

3.) Lower the heat to a medium high and add the ground pork, cook until completely browned

4.) Add soy sauce to taste, add a couple small spoonfuls of sugar and mix

5.) Add cubed tofu into wok

6.) Mix thoroughly, add in hot sauce and water mixture, mix thoroughly until liquid thickens to desired consistency

7.) Turn off stove, add scallions and mix, then plate and serve

Enjoy.