Chinese · Main Course
Mapo Tofu
Soft tofu simmered in a sauce of doubanjiang, fermented black bean and minced beef, finished with Sichuan pepper for the dish's characteristic tingling heat.
Also known asMapo doufu
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CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped and colour-adjusted for this site.
Method
Blanch the 450 g silken tofu in a pot of gently simmering, lightly salted water for 3m, then drain carefully and set aside.
A brief blanch in salted water firms the tofu's surface just enough to survive the simmer without breaking apart, without changing its soft, custardy centre.
Heat the 30 ml vegetable oil in a wok over high heat and fry the 150 g beef mince for 5m, breaking it up, until browned and starting to crisp at the edges.
Add the 30 g doubanjiang, 10 g fermented black beans, 2 garlic cloves (10 g), 8 g fresh ginger and 5 g chilli flakes and fry for 3m, until the oil turns red and fragrant.
Pour in the 250 ml chicken stock and 10 ml light soy sauce and bring to a simmer. Slide in the blanched tofu, and simmer gently, shaking the pan rather than stirring, for 8m.
Common pitfallStirring the tofu with a spoon rather than shaking the pan or folding gently breaks the cubes down into curds. The tofu wants to be moved as little as possible once it goes in.
Stir in the 12 g cornflour mixture in stages, folding gently, until the sauce clings to the tofu, about 3m. Finish with the 4 g whole Sichuan pepper and 1 ½ spring onions (25 g).
Mapo tofu's name is a description rather than a compliment: ma refers to pockmarks and po to an old woman, so mapo means, plainly, "pockmarked grandmother" [1] [2]. The woman in question is usually identified as Mrs Chen, who ran a small eatery with her husband near a bridge on the northern edge of Chengdu in the 1860s, serving cheap, filling tofu to labourers and porters passing through [2]. Unlike many named-after-someone dishes, this one has an unusually direct line to its supposed source: the restaurant is said to still trade under the Chen Mapo name in Chengdu today [2].
The dish did not arrive fully formed. Mrs Chen's own version is described as tofu cooked simply with chilli, pork and Sichuan pepper, seasoned for labourers who needed a cheap, filling meal rather than for refinement [2]. The recipe kept changing for decades after her: the meat, the exact seasoning and the balance of chilli to numbing Sichuan pepper have all shifted between households, restaurants and published recipes since, and no single version has ever been fixed as definitive.
What has stayed fixed throughout is the dish's balance of textures and sensations rather than any single fixed ingredient list: soft tofu against a thick, deeply savoury sauce, chilli heat against the specific tingling numbness of Sichuan pepper, and a generous slick of red, chilli-stained oil that is as much the point of the dish as the tofu itself.
Sources
- Mapo tofu, WikipediaOn the Chen Xingsheng eatery, the dish's evolution under chef Xue Xiangshun in the 1920s, and the earliest published recipe.
- How Mapo Tofu Became the Fiery Global Star of Sichuan Cuisine, Harper's BazaarOn the 1862 founding date, the meaning of "mapo," and Fuchsia Dunlop's corroborating account in "Every Grain of Rice."