How to Make Authentic Sichuan Mapo Tofu(麻婆豆腐）

I am from there, Sichuan. So have you watched a cooking video, the person who is from the original dish, the place, like me? They're probably admitting Mapo Tofu videos are here. But my version is the one my grandma used to make. And this is how we make at home. Hello, hello. Welcome to my channel. If you're first time here, my name is Vivian. I'm originally from Sichuan province. And now I live in the US. So if you love Sichuan food, you come to the right place. Today, I'm making one of my favorite Chaohe dishes. It's Mapo Tofu. You can see, I keep all my dried ingredients, the key ingredient. This is the chili pepper powder, Sichuan peppercorns, and this Sichuan peppercorn powder in the vacuum bag because they lose their fragrance, numbness, especially Sichuan peppercorn powder, very fast. Like coffee beans, once you open them, maybe after two weeks, they taste like nothing. So when you buy them from the store, if they taste not much numbness or fragrance, that means they're too old, too old. Okay, let's get this started. Traditional Mapo Tofu, we use the Chinese leeks, but I don't have any, so I use these big onions instead. It's fine. First, we're going to chop up some ginger. Chop them really small. Like my grandma, she used to chop everything with a cleaver, even peel the ginger. Put them aside. Today, I use the medium firm tofu. A lot of you probably prefer the soft one. I grew up in China. My grandma used a lot of these more firm tofu, just different taste. You can certainly use the soft one. You can try different kind of tofu, just gives different texture. Now, we cut the tofu in three pieces like this, like little squares, like those. Or if you have time, you can boil them in the salt water for a couple of minutes. Some people don't like the raw tofu taste, they can get rid of the taste, but not necessary. Usually, I'm a busy, busy mom, try to get dinner done, make life easier. I've been making pickles here in the U.S. since 2005, so my pickle brine is 15 years old. Those are my homemade pickle peppers. You actually can find them in the Asian market if you don't make your own pickles. My grandma used to make pickles at home, so for Mapo Tofu, we always have this pickle pepper in there. Just adds the sour, pickle, spicy pepper taste in there. Just very unique. Yeah, we chop them small, like those. Maybe I need an apron here. Now, cooking oil. I usually use canola oil. That's a very common oil used in Sichuan. Pork lard for stir-fry or not necessary. This is optional for you if you can't find it. And add some pork lard, especially in noodles. Stir-fry adds some flavor. Today, we use beef. Traditionally, this dish is beef. You can use pork, chicken, or if you are vegan, you can use mushrooms. Mushrooms bring really good flavor to the tofu as well. I'm going traditional. You don't have to be. Then we put the beef in first, the ground beef. So we break the beef in the hot oil. We fry them until crispy. So first thing we add is, if you are a real Sichuan person, if you tell them, I know in the western country, a lot of people call this doubanjiang. But to us, it's not. Jiang means sauce. This is not a sauce. So if you just call it douban, people know you are a real Chinese food lover. They might think you are from Sichuan. So we put douban in first, on the oil side. You can push the meat on this side and fry the douban. Get that red oil out. Add ginger and chili peppers. And we mix with the beef. Now we turn the heat down to medium for 30 seconds. Then we add Sichuan peppercorn powder. Mine is really strong. Chili pepper powder. So now we mix the ingredients in. Fermented black beans. Stir fry for another 20 seconds on a medium heat. Add the chicken stock or hot water. If you are vegan, just add hot water. Soy sauce is very important. You have to pick the good brand, you know. This smells so good. I always use aged soy sauce. It tastes different. This will change your life. Add some sugar to balance the taste. Add a pinch of salt. It's time to add your tofu, in Chinese, doufu. We let the tofu absorb the sauce a little bit. This smells so good. What do you think, Vivian? Yes, yes, this smells so good. You're doing a good job. We turn it down to simmer for about five minutes. Cornstarch water. We add three times. Then we mix. Then we add again. So the second time, thicker than the first time because all the starch is on the bottom of the bowl. See the sauce getting thickened. Last spoon. Scoop the bottom of the bowl. Get the cornstarch water in. Baby leeks or green onions. We always mix the leeks or onions in on the last stage. Then we sprinkle some on top later. So now we transfer them on the plate. Yes. Try this. Look at that. Look at this color. I can even smell the peppercorn. I can taste the numbness of the peppercorn in my mouth and the tofu just like melting. I can eat five bowls of rice with this. You take the piece with the black beans and meat on top and bite on that. Oh the peppercorns have very strong numbness flavor. My peppercorn powder is really strong but I like it. Now this is open, this Sichuan peppercorn powder. So if you don't store properly, this will lose the flavor. You can vacuum seal this again. But another way is in Sichuan. So everybody's house you make these two jars chili oil and Sichuan peppercorn oil. So this Sichuan peppercorn oil is from the powder and you can buy the whole pepper then grind them yourself. In Sichuan you can just buy the powder from very fresh. You grind it in the spice store or market. So next time I can show you how to make this really easy. Then you can store the peppercorn oil for a long time. This really keeps the flavor much longer than you store them in the bag or jar. 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