麻婆豆腐
A classic Sichuan dish. One of the most popular tofu dishes and for good reason. Funnily enough, this is only my second time making a tofu dish. I have a lot of room for improvement, but all things considered this turned out quite well!
Active Time: 25 min
Total Time: 25 min
Ingredients
> soft tofu, cut into cubes (1 pack, or ~1 lb)
> ground pork (2-3 oz)
> garlic, minced (3 cloves)
> ginger, minced (15g)
> green onions (2 stalks)
> corn starch
Seasonings / spices
> Sichuan pepper powder
> chili powder
> 豆瓣酱 (1-2 tbsp)
> salt (1g)
> sugar (1 tbsp)
> MSG (1g)
> dark soy sauce (2g)
> vinegar (1g)
Instructions
1. In a wok with plenty of oil over high heat, stir-fry the ground pork for a minute or so.
2. Add the 豆瓣酱 and continue to stir fry for a minute or two, or until the red oil separates.
3. Add the minced garlic, ginger, and chili powder, and continue to stir-fry for a minute or so.
4. Add water (give or take 1-2 cups, but please adjust as necessary) and bring it to a boil.
5. Add all the remaining seasonings / spices (sichuan pepper powder, salt, sugar, MSG, dark soy sauce, and vinegar). At this point, the broth should taste slightly underseasoned.
6. Add cubed tofu, reduce the heat down slightly, and cook for ~5 minutes. Gently simmer, stirring gently.
7. At this point, the liquid should resemble a thin sauce. Prepare a slurry of corn starch and water and add little by little into the wok, incorporating completely, until the desired consistency is reached.
8. Serve and garnish with the green parts of finely chopped green onions.
Notes/Tips:
> I was supremely lazy when making this dish. It still turned out great, but there are many small improvements that you can make. Some examples include: briefly blanching the tofu to eliminate the "grassy" flavor of the tofu or preparing your own ground spices (by toasting/frying Sichuan peppercorns and dried chilis, then grinding / mincing them).
> This recipe is more of a baseline; feel free to adjust to your taste. Either minced pork or beef works well. Adjust the amount of chili powder to your spice tolerance.
> Note to self: do NOT use whole peppercorns. This is definitely a dish that you'd want to enjoy with rice, consuming the tofu along with the sauce. I was lazy and used whole peppercorns, which led to many bites which were ... excessively numbing.