Mapo tofu ! Simple and good enough to go with some white rice or congee. My kind of comfort food during the hazy days and you are “forced” to stay indoors and deciding to cook something easy so that I can spend more time couching as a potato ! Lol.
But really glad that the skies have finally cleared up abit and hope that the haze will go away for good from now on.
By the way, this blog has a revamp recently ! There has been having many revamps and updates for the past few years but none of them were really satisfied and many categories were created and abandoned or leaving no updates after initial thoughts. So this time, I remove most of the dormant categories and included a new recipe index which is much user friendly and easier for me to update anytime !! Best of all, the site is now mobile responsive and I have re-classify all of my previous posts since day 1 and had them all sorted under the menu bar above. Finally, all are in place now and I should say, am very happy and satisfied with the change this time ! Well, i suppose this should be my last major revamp for the years down the road !! So do take time to browse through if you are bored ! LOL. Hopefully something or somewhere blogged about will keep you entertained !!
Back to the Mapo tofu !! Usually traditional or silky tofu are used… but guess what, I am being out of the box again by using egg tofu !! Amongst all beancurds and tofu, I think I only eat the egg tofu. Hence i decided to incorporate the same into this dish as well !!
Here’s what you need before we begin ! The Spicy Chili Bean Paste and Szechuan Peppercorns are of utmost importance ! Although the packaging states as Szechuan Pepper only, but this is actually in peppercorns version.
A simple illustration on how this goes..
Step 1 : Cut the tofu according to the instructions on the packaging into small pieces and blanch them over boiling water with a little salt. This is to firm up the tofu and prevent them from breaking up during cooking later on.
Step 2 : Heat up the sesame oil with the Szechuan peppercorns till fragrant. Discard the peppercorn seeds and reserve the oil using a strainer.
Step 3 : Using the fragrant oil from the previous step, stir fried the minced garlic and spring onion briefly till aromatic. Add in the minced pork and spicy bean paste accordingly.
Step 4 : Add in the water to dilute the spicy bean paste so that it will not be so salty. Add in the corn flour solution to let the water be soaked up slightly before adding the tofu. Stir gently to ensure all the tofu are well covered by the sauce. Simmer for awhile more till the sauce boils and off the flame. Dish and serve. Complete with chopped spring onion as garnish and dash of Szechuan pepper if available.
I gotten the pork to be minced fresh from PurelyFresh to cook this dish !! Such services are available from Purelyfresh at no extra charge ! For those who doesn’t take pork, you can always replace it with minced chicken. It will taste equally good too !
Enjoy!
- 2 pcs of egg tofu (you can replace with silky/traditional tofu)
- 150g minced pork / chicken
- 2 tbsp minced garlic
- 3-4 stalks of spring onion, chopped (extra for garnishing)
- 150ml water
- dash of Sichuan pepper (if available)
- For the Chili Oil:
- 1 tbsp Sichuan peppercorncorns
- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- For the Mapo Sauce:
- 3 tbsp spicy bean paste (feel free to add more if you can take spice, but please increase the amount of water in proportion too)
- 1 tsp light soy sauce
- 1½ tsp sugar
- For the Corn Flour solution:
- 1 tsp corn flour
- 1 tbsp water
- Cut the tofu according to the instructions on the packaging into small pieces and blanch them over boiling water with a little salt. This is to firm up the tofu and prevent them from breaking up during cooking later on.
- Heat up the sesame oil with the Szechuan peppercorns till fragrant. Discard the pepper seeds and reserve the oil using a strainer.
- Using the fragrant oil from the previous step, stir fried the minced garlic and spring onion briefly till aromatic. Add in the minced pork and spicy bean paste accordingly.
- Add in the water to dilute the spicy bean paste so that it will not be so salty. Add in the corn flour solution to let the water be soaked up slightly before adding the tofu. Stir gently to ensure all the tofu are well covered by the sauce.
- Simmer for awhile more till the sauce boils and off the flame. Dish and serve. Complete with chopped spring onion as garnish and dash of Szechuan pepper (if available).
