And we're back for China part 2 of 4! Today's dinner comes from the Sichuan (aka Szechuan) province, representing the western part of the country. Sichuan cuisine is super flavorful and spicy, making it one of my favorites. If you've ever had kung pao chicken, dan dan noodles, or Szechuan chicken, you've had Sichuan food! (I'm also a big fan of cucumber salad and cold sesame noodles.)
The meal I decided to make to represent this cuisine is one of its most famous: mapo tofu. Mapo tofu basically means "pockmarked grandma's tofu."
The first step is to mix your ground meat (usually pork or beef--I used frozen veggie crumbles) with soy sauce, ginger, and Shaoxing wine, which I introduced in yesterday's post.
Then you prepare your Sichuan peppercorns. When I opened the bag, they smelled amazing. Sichuan peppercorns are a huge part of Sichuan cooking so I knew I couldn't just use any dried chili to replace them. They're spicy, but they also have a nice herbaceous smell and taste.
The peppercorns are fried in some oil for a minute until they're dark and crispy, then they're fished out and set on a paper towel to drain. The oil that's left over is infused with the flavor of the peppercorns, and the toasted peppercorns are used later for garnishing.
The next step is adding your meat mixture to the wok...
Along with a healthy amount of a salty, pungent chili bean paste known as doubanjiang. Once everything is coated in the oil and paste, scallion is added and stir fried another minute.
Then cubes of tofu are placed in a singer layer on top. The recipe I used called for medium or firm tofu. I usually buy extra/super firm, but I think the regular firm works fine for this dish and doesn't fall apart when stirred.
Next, some Chinese five spice is added; I've had this particular container from Big Lots in my cabinet for way too long and it's absolutely expired but I think it sat unopened for a while so it's all good. I used five spice powder all the time in college, when basically the only meal I made for myself was tofu stir fried with five spice and soy sauce.
Then some Chinese chili oil. The recipe I used basically told me I was a fool if I bought this instead of just making my own, but I made this dish on a weeknight and didn't really feel like messing around too much with hot oil, plus I would have to find the right dried chili or chili flakes.
Then you add a cup of water, bring it to a simmer, and cover it so the tofu braises in the sauce.
Once it's done cooking, you add some cornstarch to thicken up the sauce a little more. The end result ends up bright red, a little oily, definitely pungent and spicy.
Some more scallions are added on top to contrast with the red color and offer some freshness to offset the salty-spicy sauce. The peppercorns that were used in the first steps are ground up into a powder and sprinkled on top, in case it wasn't spicy enough.
The dish is best served over a bed of white rice with a cold drink to help with the spiciness. The peppercorns add what's known as "numbing" spice to the dish, but there's still some regular spicy hot flavor going on too. Luckily, I love spicy food! I've never ordered mapo tofu from a restaurant before since it is usually made with meat, but I think now that I have all the ingredients I need (lots more than I needed for this one dish) I'll be making it for myself pretty often! I think next time I will try out using finely chopped mushrooms in place of the meat instead of the veggie crumbles.
This dish was much easier to prepare than I was anticipating! The next 2 parts are going to be slightly more difficult, since I'm going to be making dumplings and noodles by hand. I've done both before for this project, but only on the weekend! We'll see how it goes!
Recipes Used: Mapo tofu
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