My take on mabo tofu

I decided to make some mabo tofu one evening, but I realized that I didn't have any ground beef or pork, so I had to use some dry-fried shrimp that I had in the freezer. "Gasp", goes the Szechuan gourmet ;) Anyway, to speed up the defrosting process, I put a number of shrimp in a mixture of Shaoxing wine and cold water, enough to cover the shrimp. I then proceeded to consult the mabo tofu recipe from Fuschia Dunlop's "Land of Plenty" (2001) since it looked to be the most straightforward version. I've adapted the recipe to the ingredients I had around - good cooks have to be resourceful by nature, you know.

Here are the ingredients:

1 block tofu, cut into 1-in. cubes
2 1/2 T doubanjian (Szechuan chili bean paste)
1/2 C peanut oil
1 T dousi (fermented black beans)
1-2 t ground chili pepper (I used Korean gochugaru - sacrilege!)
1 C chicken stock
1 t white sugar
2 t light soy sauce
salt to taste
cornstarch mixture with 4 T cornstarch :: 6 T cold water
1/2 t ground roasted Szechuan pepper (also known as huajiao).

Plus the shrimp...

Put the tofu into a pot of gently simmering water, lightly salted if you wish. In a wok, heat up the oil until smoking, then add the shrimp; cook until fragrant. Then add doubanjian and heat until fragrant. After that, add dousi and chili powder.


Here is the mixture with the shrimp, oil, doubanjian, dousi, and gochugaru chili powder. Fry until fragrant. Meanwhile, drain the tofu. Add the chicken stock, sugar, and soy sauce to the wok and heat until simmering. Gradually add the tofu, making sure that it doesn't break once it's in the wok.


The tofu gets added. Simmer for 5 minutes so that the flavor can penetrate the tofu.


After 5 minutes of simmering, add the cornstarch mixture a little bit at a time, until the tofu becomes glossy with the sauce. You should not overthicken the sauce. Then, sprinkle the huajiao over the top of the mabo tofu. Eat with plenty of steamed rice.

Well, how did this turn out? It wasn't as spicy or "fragrantly numbing" (ma la) as it should be. I think I need to get another brand of doubanjian and add more Szechuan pepper the next time. A caveat: if you haven't tasted the "fragrant numbing" (ma) sensation provided by Szechuan pepper, you should take a grain of the pepper, chew it once or twice, and spit it out. In a couple of moments, you will feel a strange numbing sensation with a citrus-like fragrance. Do not be alarmed - this is what you want.

Hope you enjoy making this.