Mapo Tofu: Back On That ‘Grind’
After a two day delay and a quick trip to my local Chinatown, I finally found enough energy and mental will-power to make some ‘mapo tofu’ from scratch.
I’ve only ever made mapo tofu at home once before (and that was using a pre-made packaged sauce), so this attempt was going to involve a bit of learning. Other than that first ‘homemade’ version, the last time I remember having mapo tofu was during my trip to Japan back in 2023… a very fond memory involving two of my friends and a last-minute-decision kind of meal that left nothing to be desired.
Tonight’s dish, however, wasn’t as easily acquired as it was in Japan; this one required a bit more prep and a stop to H-Mart.
I pushed off making this meal two days ago because I didn’t have a few of the seemingly key ingredients that the online recipe required (chili bean paste, black bean chili oil & Sichuan peppercorns). Since the grocery store I work at didn’t have any of those things (an all-natural, organic grocer without a variety of Asian essentials?? shocker!), I made the decision to walk out into the humid, Philadelphia air to get what I needed. To save a bit of cash and use some ingredients that I already had at home, I ended up only getting some ground pork and the Sichuan peppercorns…and maybe a small boba drink as a reward for walking in the heat.
Preparations for this meal started at the highly reasonable time of 7:30pm: a bold decision for someone like myself who has to be at work by 6:00am tomorrow morning. As most dinners go, once all of the prep work was done it was relatively easy to follow this Instagram account’s recipe. I had some frozen grated ginger which I pulled out at the beginning of prep, I chopped up way too much garlic (but don’t worry - I saved the extra for a future dinner), and I spent a good amount of time worrying about whether or not I had ground up the Sichuan peppercorns enough. I think I did it right? Who knows…
[Side note: I didn’t realize there were green AND red Sichuan peppercorns in existence; today I grabbed a bag of the red ones and hoped for the best]
I ended up using some ‘dashi miso paste’ mixed with two freshly minced red chilies and some sriracha in place of the chili bean paste since I am under the impression that miso consists of soybean paste (right?). For the black bean chili oil, I mixed together some jarred black bean sauce and some Lao Gan Ma chili crisp since that seemed to make logical sense to me (?).
Overall, I’d call this meal successful enough to be accepted as mapo tofu over rice to the common American. The fattiness of the ground pork added a lot more flavor than I’d imagine any other type of meat would add; the umami flavors given from the dashi miso and oyster sauce helped add some depth to the sauce; the firm [but soft] tofu added some more protein to the mix and added some different textures; the ground Sichuan peppercorns gave just enough of a tingly sensation to be enjoyable; and the white rice helped combine all these tasty things together by providing some relief from the saltiness of the mapo sauce.
If I make it again, I think I’ll want to try and make it with the actual ingredients it called for to see if that makes much of a difference in flavor. I would also like to make it a bit spicier by maybe adding some more chili crisp and/or more red chilies. I’m very happy to have satisfied my craving for this dish, added some leftovers for my dinners this week, and helped to clear out some of the ingredients in my fridge.
