How to Cook Mapo Tofu

MaPo Tufo is a famous Chinese dish from Sichuan province. And it is my favorite Chinese tradition food. About this dish history, It is very interesting.

During the reign of Emperor Guangxu (1871-1908) of the Qing Dynasty (1644 -1911), a woman named Wen Qiaoqiao pitted from pock-marks in Chengdu City was married to an owner of an oil refinery. Unluckily, after 10 years of marriage her husband died in an accident while carrying oil. After her husband’s death, Qiaoqiao and her sister in-law were left poorly off. Her husband’s former laborers and her neighbors often took rice and vegetables to assist them. There happened to be a tofu shop and a beef shop on either side of their residence. One day, Qiaoqiao put the ground beef and the tofu together to be stewed into a dish and found it tasted delicious. Then, she asked the neighbors to taste it and almost all of them felt it nice to eat. After she died, people named the dish as ma po tofu (pock-marked grandmother) to remember her and the name has been used ever since.

This dish is very easy to cook. Ma po tofu is made of soft tofu, ground beef, chopped chili, prickly ash powder and broad bean paste. But today I did not add beef into this dish.

Step 1

We need prepared soft tofu (bean curd cake), broad bean paste, cooking wine, soy sauce, salt, surge and chopped green onion.

Note: the amount of the seasonings listed above can be appropriately measured according to one’s personal taste.

Step 2

Cutting the tofu. Fill half wok water, turn on the heat and pour in the tofu cubes when the water is boiling. Boil the bean curd for 1 minute and then pick them out of the wok, and remove excess water through a colander.

Step 3

Add in the chopped ginger to be stir-fried by high heat for about 1 minutes, add in the broad bean paste and stir-fry them together until smelling fragrant, about 3 minutes.

Step 4

Put tofu into the sauce and add in the salt and white sugar and stir-fried them for about 2 minutes on high heat until all are covered with the seasoning sauce.

Step 5

Now, turn off the heat, add in the chopped green onion and the prickly ash powder.Then ladle it out of the wok and put it into a fine porcelain plate.

When we finished this dish, it is done and indeed is an irresistible temptation.