Recipe – Mapo Tofu

Mapo Tofu is a popular Chinese dish from Sichuan province. This dish is an absolute comfort food that’s light on the palate. While the original Sichuan Mapo Tofu is extremely spicy, you can adjust the level of spice according to what you desire when preparing Mapo Tofu at home. Following the recipe from the Sweet Mandarin Cookbook by Helen and Lisa Tse, I’ve whipped up the most delicious tasting Mapo Tofu of my entire twenty plus years of life. Hope you’ll enjoy this dish as much as my family had.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1cm piece of fresh root ginger, peeled and sliced
200g minced pork
1 teaspoon chilli bean sauce
225ml chicken stock
150g firm tofu, cut into 2cm cubes
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon Shaoxing rice wine
½ teaspoon sesame oil
1 spring onion, finely chopped, to garnish

Instructions
1. Heat a wok on high heat and add the oil. Put in ginger and pork and stir-fry continuously over high heat until the pork is almost cooked. This takes approximately 10 minutes.
2. Add chilli bean sauce and stir well to combine.
3. Pour in chicken stock and stir again.
4. Nestle the pieces of tofu in the sauce and carefully spoon some of the sauce over the top to keep them moist.
5. Season with salt, sugar, Shaoxing wine and sesame oil.
6. Reduce the heat to low and simmer gently for 2 minutes until the sauce has reduced by half.

To serve, spoon the tofu and sauce into a deep bowl, garnish with spring onions and accompany with jasmine rice.

Ps. Add chilli oil if you want to make this dish spicier – the tofu will absorb the flavour of the chilli to pack a punch.

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