Mapo dofu (麻婆豆腐）: numbing hot Szechuan stew

alking about Chinese cuisine is like talking about European cuisine ignoring the difference between, say, Norwegian, French, Polish and Greek food. In China, culinary varies enormously from region to region. On my first trip to China, I would move on to a new place every 2-3 days and I could never get the same food that I liked in the city before. A weirdly enjoyable kind of frustration.

There are eight main cuisines in China if we leave ethnic varieties like Tibetan or Uighur as well as urban fusion styles from Beijing or Shanghai out of the equation. One of the Eight Great Traditions is that of Sichuan (Szechuan).

It hails from the Southwest of China and is the spiciest of them all. There is even a special word for Szechuan kind of spiciness, numbing hot: 麻 (má). This comes from the use of the so-called Szechuan pepper - dried flowers of a special tree that however is not related either to black pepper or chili peppers. They cause a mild numbing sensations to the taste buds.

Mapo dofu is perhaps the most famous Szechuan dish. I first tried it in Japan but my real encounter with it took place in Laos. The country's capital Vientiane is more of an oversized village with a handful of colonial French buildings. Laotian people love, nay, can only eat spicy food so the scraggy man from Chengdu who runs the only Szechuan restaurant in a thatched shack never runs out of customers.

Those were still my vegetarian days so after short negotiations in broken Chinese and Laotian he agreed to cook mapo tofu in front of me. Here I will share his recipe with you. It can be made either vegetarian or with meat.

The basic requirements for this dish are that it should be: numbing hot (麻), spicy hot (辣), hot temperature (烫), fresh (鲜), tender and soft (嫩), aromatic (香) (aromatic) and flaky (酥). This is achieved with a succession of the following.

1. Cut a medium sized aubergine into longish (5-6 cm) slivers and put on a plate to dry.
   
2. Cut a 400-500 g block of hard tofu into 1 cm cubes. Allow to drain and dry a bit.
3. Heat a thick-bottomed pot or wok. Add 4 tbsp odourless vegetable oil and wait until it's hot.
4. Add the tofu, gently stir and make sure it's all covered by oil.
5. While the tofu is frying , peel and slice a few cloves of garlic.
6. Once the tofu is blonde yellow, scoop it out in a bowl and add garlic to the oil.
7. Once garlic is golden yellow, add half a teaspoonful of Szcechuan pepper, one tsp of white and one tsp of black sesame. Fry briefly until fragrant.
8. (This is optional but I really love this touch: add 5-6 pre-soaked and julienned dried shiitake and fry until they start giving out flavour.)
9. (Also optional but it gives the dish a smokey flvaour: add a nice dash of qingjiang vinegar and let it boil out.)
   
10. Add 100 g minced meat: pork, veal or beef. Fry briefly until it's not red any more. Make sure it does not end up chunky. Vegetarians: use pre-soaked TSP (texturised soya protein) mince and soya sauce instead of fish sauce.
11. Add the aubergines and fry for another 5 minutes. Add the tofu.
    
12. Dissolve 2 tablespoonfuls corn starch in half a litre of water. Add into the pot and gently mix.
13. Add 4 tablespoonful of doubanjiang and a glug of fish sauce and a glug of Chinese rice wine. Gently mix. Bring to boil, then reduce the heat.
    
14. Add a handful of bean sprouts and half a handful of pre-soaked golden needles.
15. Allow to simmer for 15-20 minutes more on a very low heat. Allow all the juices to dissolve and mix. It is even better to let the stew sit on the stove for an hour or so.
16. Serve with freshly cooked rice.
    

It is very easy to make it veg(etari)an: use TSP (texturised soya protein) mince and soya sauce instead of fish sauce.

Let Sa Ding Ding's Mantra accompany this fragrant meal: