Mapo Tofu

Rating: 9.5/10 | someone cooked here

Today is Will’s birthday, so I thought it’d be fitting to say a word about what is quite possibly one of his best culinary creations to date: the simple, humble, and incredibly comforting Mapo Tofu.

I’m really not sure what prompted Will to start on his grand journey of mastering the art of the tofu—perhaps it was a foodiechina888 reel I sent him while bedrotting. Anyway, the photo here is his most recent iteration of the dish. Silky, smooth, rich, and filling, this dish was the perfect midnight pick-me-up for a struggling poor soul (me) on the brink of collapse two days out from a final. The solace found in just straight up slurping tofu in a deliciously rich sauce was unbelievable. I wolfed down two bowls of this completely on its own, without rice on said occasion. That being said, I am a huge advocate of enjoying the tofu with some rice to serve as the blank canvas on which the figurative animated brushstrokes and vibrant colours of this masterpiece can freely dance.

It wouldn’t do Will’s culinary acumen justice to attempt to recount the recipe on his behalf, so you can just DM him if you’d like the precise steps. What I CAN do is helpfully list out the ingredients so you can get an idea of how beautifully the dish comes together from a very simple set of ingredients, named below:

• Silken tofu (substitutable with tofus of other firmness IMO) (Will insists strictly on silken only, though)

• Ground pork (also substitutable for other protein)

• Chicken bouillon powder

• Lao Gan Ma

• Cornstarch

• Spring onions

• Garlic

“But wait, Silin! That doesn’t sound like authentic Mapo Tofu at all!!"

Yes, dear reader, you would be correct in your assessment. I can confidently (like, betting-my-life-on-this confident) say that it does not need to be authentic to be eye-wateringly delectable. We are 1.5 CBC after all, so I think Will’s creations are still indisputably light years ahead of any expectations of genuineness there are.