Mah Po Tofu Recipe

Issay's sister Mio asked me whether there are some good ma po tofu recipes out there. Yes there are. But since I cook it so often, I guess I can post mine too. It's adapted from Fu Pei Mei's famous home cooking cook book, published in Taiwan over 10 years ago.

Ma Po tofu is a vegetarian friendly dish. You can easily substitute the meat in the recipe with some vegetarian mince (which resembles ground pork) or some sort of minced tempeh. You can probably even just do a straight vegetarian version with some vegetable stock and peas and carrots.

Anyway, here's the regular recipe I cook for Issay. The key to making successful Ma Po tofo is to make sure you simmer the tofu for a good twenty minutes to let the broth penetrate into the tofu and flavor it from the inside out.

Ingredients:

1/4-1/2 lb ground pork, turkey, or chicken (beef is a bit too fatty so I'd not recommend it). Good ground meat consists of a good blend of fat and lean cuts.

1-2 blocks of soft tofu (2 blocks to make leftovers), cut into 1 inch cubes and blanched for 1 minute in boiling hot water

1 tbsp of Chili bean paste(chili bean paste is a fermented bean product with chili seasoning added,kind of like a strong miso with chili, except more flavorful).

1/2 tsp chili powder (gives the tofu a smoky flavor)

2 tbsp soy sauce

1/3 tsp salt

1/3 tsp sugar

11/2 cup chicken or veg stock

2 tsp cornstarch, dissolved in 1 tbsp of water into slurry

1 tsp sesame oil

Lots of freshly cracked black pepper

2 stalks of green onion, chopped

First of all, you need to boil a pot of water. Drain and cut the tofu into 1 inch cubes. Then place the cubes into the boiling water for 1 minute. Drain.

Then, heat up a tsp of oil in a wok or deep bottomed pan. Start browning the ground meat on medium high heat. Season with the salt, sugar, chili bean paste, chili powder, and soy sauce. The meat should be well browned and smell very fragrant.

Then, add the stock to the meat. Bring to high boil. Add the tofu, then keep on medium to high boil for 20 minutes. By the end of the 20 minutes, the stock will have reduced by about 1/3. Then, add the corn starch slurry to the tofu while the heat is on medium. Stir until the sauce begins to thicken.

Turn off the fire, drizzle with green onions, sesame oil, and cracked black pepper.

If you can't find chili bean paste, just use a regular chili paste to get the mild heat. It will lack the pungency of the bean paste, but will still be tasty. For those of you who are averse to eating spicy dish... well this dish is probably not for you. Jk... just put in a little chili paste. It will be a mild version but not really ma po tofu... :)