Hello friends and not yet friends,
Mapo Tofu has been highly requested here on Mary's Test Kitchen and, you know, I love
giving you what you want!
So today we're making one of the best known dishes from Sichuan cuisine vegan.
Intensely flavoured with fermented ingredients, spicy hot which you can adjust, along with
a curious mouth-tingling sensation from Sichuan peppers.
Totally different from the Cantonese cuisine I grew up with but let's give it a go!
Starting with those special fermented ingredients you'll need to get at your local Asian store
with a decent selection of Chinese ingredients or online.
I've left you links in the description so you can find them easily.
First: fermented broad bean paste aka Dòubànjiàng.
Look for the reference to Píxiàn, the county in Sichuan province famous for this stuff.
This will give our Mapo Tofu it's characteristic red colour.
This stuff is strong.
So when you're at the store, you might even smell it before you see it.
Maybe.
This brand is super salty as well.
Kicks you in the face with that salt.
Some are not as salty so you'll want to give it a tiny taste; just dip the tip of a chopstick
in.
Taste as you go with this recipe so you can adjust easily and also get to know the ingredients.
So you can do your own inventing later.
Next, you'll want some dòuchǐ or dauh-sih; which are fermented black beans.
Again, you're going to want to look for black beans from Píxiàn, especially if you're
not familiar with how to select dòuchǐ.
Without getting too much into it, they don't have to be from there but there are other
varieties and it can get confusing so might as well go straight for this kind.
For both of these, you'll want to chop them up finely so you and your guests don't bite
into super salty chunks which can ruin the experience.
Ask me how I know.
One more special ingredient, whole Sichuan peppercorns which will give this dish it's
characteristic mouth numbing sensation.
It's not spicy hot though, it doesn't burn.
It tingles and there's a little floral essence to the flavour that I appreciate.
So it's up to you whether you want to include this but I highly encourage you just to try
a bit if you've never tried it.
It's really interesting.
Freshly toasted in a hot pan for less than 30 seconds until they just turn fragrant and
ground give you the strongest flavour.
Pre-ground stuff is almost completely useless but hey, if that's all you got, it's all you
got.
As always, the full ingredients and instructions will be linked below.
Then for the main ingredient: silken tofu also known as smooth tofu.
The store bought stuff is going to be a quite a bit firmer than the homemade silken tofu
from last week so it'll hold together better in this dish.
But hey, it's your Mápó dòufu and there are no rules; use what you want.
Carefully cut the tofu into large bite sized chunks.
I like them big so even if they break down a little in the wok, we'll still have nice
sized pieces at the end.
Simmer them in water.
This step will firm up the tofu a bit more and you can add salt so that the tofu gets
salty all the way inside.
But truth be told, when i'm being lazy, I skip this.
Drain and set aside.
I'm using a popular ground beef alternative here to replace the traditionally used pork
or beef.
Making things easy.
But you can also sub chopped mushrooms.
A blend of shiitake and cremini would be really delicious.
We start with oil in the wok.
When cooking more traditional Chinese food, my feeling is that a wok is best, even if
you have to settle for a flat bottom wok.
Some chefs will be passionate about this from a technical point of view but for me, it's
more about feeling, sentimentality than anything else.
And just brown up that ground.
If you're using mushrooms, you'll cook until the mushrooms are well shrunk and fragrant.
For this stuff, we just want to heat it through and get a little colour.
I'll add in some vegan Worchestershire sauce for some faux beefiness though, honestly,
with all the other flavours we'll have in this dish, it's not really necessary.
Transfer that to a dish and set it aside and scrub out your wok if anything stuck.
Now for the interesting stuff.
Dòubànjiàng, the fermented broad bean paste.
Again, make sure you chop this up, even though it's liquidy, there are chunks in there that
are just a kick in the face to bite through.
We'll fry this fragrant over low heat, careful not to burn.
Just half a minute or so.
Then the aromatics: garlic, ginger, scallions whites.
We'll add the dark green parts later.
And chopped dòuchǐ, fermented black beans.
This is the stuff in garlic black bean sauce , by the way.
Let that sizzle; turn up the heat if you need to.
Also the Sichuan pepper that I should have ground up a bit finer than this but I was
impatient.
Friends, learn from my mistakes.
Be more patient.
When you think you're being patient already, be more patient.
Add the drained tofu.
And some water to pick up that paste.
And the browned ground or mushrooms.
You'll want to add enough water to almost submerge your tofu and turn up the heat to
bring this to a simmer.
Use your spatula or wooden spoon to make sure the paste at the bottom gets brought up but
be gentle so you don't break the tofu.
I almost forgot the spicy hot heat!
I'm using chili oil because I find it's easier to control the heat this way.
But you can certainly use red pepper flakes if you like.
Now we'll simmer for a few minutes so all the flavours can meld together.
And add the dark green scallion bits for that freshness and colour.
You could add more to this dish if you liked.
Wood ear fungus is great in this.
You could add some veggies.
Some creamy steamed potatoes to soak up that sauce would be amazing.
But I'll keep it simple.
Taste early and often so you can adjust the flavour, especially for saltiness and heat.
It's really salty for me so I'm adding more water to dilute a bit.
And I want a bit of brown sugar.
Not so much that it will taste sweet but to balance the spice.
And lastly, a wee bit of cornstarch mixed with water to thicken the sauce slightly.
Help the sauce cling to the tofu.
And once that's bubbling again, it's ready!
Ready to serve over white rice.
Even though I unexpectantly ran out of white rice and had to sub brown for this shoot.
But make no mistake, this dish is a million and one times better over fragrant Jasmine
rice.
In fact, minus 50 points for the brown rice.
Brown rice lovers, don't fight me.
This spicy, intense, mouth-numbing dish with delicious, smooth tofu is worth it.
If you've never cooked with silken tofu before, this is a great place to start.
It's cozy, warming and perfect for days like this.
When it's supposed to be spring but it's still snowing.
Or even in the summer when it's hot and strangely, hot food can cool you down.
Please give this dish a try and tell me what you think in the comments below.
As well, let me know what other Chinese dishes you'd like to see veganized.
I was so happy to see you guys make my Deep Fried Chinese Eggplant on Instagram.
It's not the prettiest dish in the world but, boy, did you love the flavour!
And the Kung Pao Tofu.
Shoutout especially to Justin and Tanisha from Logical Harmony, a great vegan beauty
channel here on YouTube and the authority on cruelty-free cosmetics with their website:
logicalharmony.net.
Which you should definately check out if you're transitioning your beauty and body care stuff
or just want to see what's new in vegan cosmetics.
They got pretty addicted to that dish.
I just love seeing you guys take these recipes and make them your own.
It's the best gift that you can give me and it keeps me motivated to make these videos
for you.
As always, thank you for watching.
If you have any questions, just leave them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer.
Please give this video a thumbs up if you liked it and subscribe for more vegan recipes,
as well as vegan cookbook reviews.
I just did one for the hot for food cookbook, which spoiler alert, was amazing.
And coming up: Vegan Richa's Everyday Kitchen.
Bye for now.