Bill’s Mapo Tofu
After Uncle Roger’s Egg Fried Rice routine blew up on the Internet and everyone had to make their version, it seems Mapo Tofu is in the background now. The first time I saw mention of this was a few years back when the late great Anthony Bourdain noted it as comfort food while travelling in China.
So here’s mine and just like Egg Fried Rice, I don’t think it’s anything that special. But like any recipe, you can dress it up or have it plain and simple.
Way back in the early 00s, not long after Jordan was born, my mom gushed over him as he’s her first grandchild and started taking care of him as much as she could have him. Jordan played with the next door neighbour at the house I spent my adolescence to adulthood and they both soon developed a love for a saucy mapo tofu mixed in with rice that she would make for them.
Her recipe was extremely simple. None of the spicy stuff nor Szechuan oily look of a fire breathing sauce. It was just ground pork, soy sauce, oyster sauce, corn starch slurry and tofu rough chopped with a spatula in a pot and brought up to a boil. That’s what he liked, came home asking for and I asked my mom what she did.
As he grew older and sibblings appeared. I was also yearning to make it more complicated.
Garnishing with chopped pickled mustard, szechuan peppercorn powder, chicken stock, hondashi, chili garlic sauce, chile bean paste, green onions, switched to beef a few times and probably more variations that I can’t remember as I type.
What ended up sticking to more or less was this and the quantities do differ depending on my mood.
- 1 block of fresh made tofu (Korean supermarket Galleria near me does this) Cube it or not, quick and dirty method is to throw it in and use your spatula to rough chop it. (One vlogger says to give the tofu a quick blanche in hot water to get rid of the grassy taste. I’ve never had to do that as it’s not bothered me before but that could possibly be how it’s made and packed here in Canada, maybe?)
- .5 to 1lb ground pork
- 1 Tbsp-ish of cooking oil
- 1 Tbsp (more or less) Lee Kum Kee chili bean paste (chili paste of any sort will do)
- 10 Szechuan peppecorns ground down which makes about 1/8 tsp
- A few glugs (bottle with the glugging stopper, whatever you call it) of Japanese soy sauce
- A dollop (probably tsp) of oyster sauce
- A cup-ish of water (flavoured with hondashi or Oxo chicken stock powder or stock)
- 1-2 tsp corn starch mixed with another cup of water to make the thickening slurry.
Optional, I like
- Pickled mustard stems chopped
- Sliced green onions (short, long, however you want) to garnish
In a cooking vessel. A pot gets it done. A wok or pan will give you more flavour with the whole maillard meat browning thing. Heat the oil up and fry your meat.
(If I’m particularly lazy and I’m dealing with frozen squares of meat, I’ll put in in the pot with water and set it on low, come back every 5-10 minutes and scrape the defrosted bits so I don’t have big clumps and then essentially boil the meat.)
Add the Szechuan pepper powder and chili bean paste and cook the paste out a bit until your meat gets a red tinge from the chili.
Add soy and oyster sauce and if you’re doing the wok/pan method, water. Deglaze.
(Side note, I’ve recently started using mirin and xiaoshin wine to see what that’s like…. I can’t tell the difference)
Add your tofu, stir it up to get the liquid coating it. Add more liquid if it’s dry to you.
Add the corn starch slurry and more water/stock if you like it saucy.
Bring back to a boil and serve over rice. Garnished or not with extra stuff. Add/subtract soy, oyster and bean paste sauces to your liking.
