Success!

[Merryprankster]

Today I made Ma Po Tofu with a recipe grabbed from the Chengdu culinary institute.

As several of you are aware, my favorite Szechuan restaurant (they delivered!) recently moved over 15 miles away, up from the previous 3 minute walk.

I have been jonesing for this stuff big time. The local Cantonese restaurant, which serves mediocre Cantonese food (at best, although they have excellent shrimp won ton soup) calls Tofu in a brown sauce (dark soy, light soy, rice wine, sugar, chicken stock, touch of oyster sauce and white pepper), with a couple of dried japanese chilis thrown in "Ma Po Tofu." This is a travesty. Too much sugar! Too much (Japanese!!!!!!!) soy! Too much cornstarch! The typical Chinese retaurant woes....

Where was the rich tang of fermented horse beans with chili?! The numbing buzz of sichuan peppercorns?! How about the subtle caramel undertones of dark soy?!

To top it off, they had clearly pulled the Bean Curd straight from the fridge and added it without simmering! It was cold in the center of (the too large) cubes and the texture was too firm. BAH!

Thus began my quest to find happiness. I searched first in my copy of Eileen Yin Fei-Lo's classic "The Chinese Kitchen," a truly authoritative book.... unfortunately, she too, is a Cantonese chef and her version immediately struck me as wrong. Too lightly flavored. Not enough garlic and ginger.... just not aggressive enough. That's ok--Cantonese cooking is known for respecting its ingredients and being far more subtle than Szechuan, Hunan, etc.

So, what to do? Searches proved fruitless. Then I remembered that the old restaurant bragged they had chefs trained at the Chengdu cooking school... AH HA!!!

One look at my flat screen told me of future goodness:

Preserved Horse Beans and Chili!
Superior Dark soy!
Garlic and Ginger in frightening amounts!
Szechuan Peppercorns, freshly toasted and ground!

AND........ simmering the Tofu before adding it to the dish.

It was clear to me that there was too much cornstarch in the recipe, but I chalked that up to bad translation. Teaspoon and Tablespoon could be confused easily. The rest appeared up to snuff.

So I made it. And ****ed if it wasn't almost perfect. It needs a finishing splash of either hot pepper oil or chiu chow oil (not sure which), which will require me to up the salt just by about two pinches. And the recipe recommends firm tofu. I will use soft in the future.

Wonderful!!!!!

Next stop: Ants Climb a Tree and Dan Dan noodle.....