As I progress as a home cook, I am increasingly excited and somewhat bewildered that I can truly make some of my restaurant favorites at home. And in some cases, meal preparation is quicker than ordering delivery. The latest dish that I am astounded I can make at home – and is better than delivery options (though not top-flight restaurants) – is Mapo Tofu.
I've again turned to my Sichuan vegan master friends at Serious Eats, and modified their recipe to both make it very easy to put together (maybe 30 minutes from start to finish) and address personal preferences.
The first set of modifications I've made is to cut out all the mushroom elements, which includes removing steps 1 – 3 from the original Serious Eats recipe. Instead, I've substituted 3/4 cup of water mixed with some vegetable bouillon to form the underlying sauce liquid. I retained the step 3 instruction to combine the liquid with cornstarch, cooking wine, and soy sauce.
The second time I made the recipe, I also skipped step 4 or the pre-seasoning the vegetable oil with Sichuan peppercorns and dried red chiles. I think I overcooked it in my first attempt, so my husband detected a burnt spice flavor in the resulting dish. Instead of attempting to cook it for less time the second time, I decided to just skip this step – which to my taste, didn't make a huge difference in end result.
So in my re-envisioning of the recipe, cooking step 1 really starts with cooking down the aromatics in oil before adding the sauce liquid.
The second time I made this recipe, I also just used extra scallions instead of also using chives, which also didn't really make a difference to me in the final result.
Because the pot is quite hot, it's really just a matter of minutes from adding the aromatics to the cooking liquid to then the tofu, so make sure you are ready with all the components to throw in as needed.
When ready, serve with rice. This recipe prepares approx. 4 servings, and I think it'll become a monthly, if not biweekly, addition to my kitchen!
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