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[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.....

[Ray Pina]

And here I thought you were going to say you choked out Royce or won yet another tournament. Glad to hear you're winning on so many levels.

I also thought of you the other night: I heard one of my teacher's past students was invited to grapple in Suadi Arabia or some other middle-east country ... Unagoto, Obagato or something like that. Have you heard of it?

I keep hearing about this past student and how good he is .... drives me bonkers .... there can be only one.:D

[Merryprankster]

won yet another tournament.

Hmmm... I tend not to post these. Some people here have done it on their own initiative. I do post video clips because of the mutual welfare and benefit idea. Most of my clips are of me losing, soooooo.... :)

I had an old girlfriend that beat bragging out of me. I was a socially retarded adolescent....I'm not convinced that much has changed.

As far as competing, not till my shoulder heals. Orthopedist visit tomorrow--will likely have to get it surgically repaired. I am not much for the knife, but after extensive research, there is really little that modern western or any other sort of medicine can do beyond that. I'm having to bow out of the Pan-Am's, the Arnold's and the World's this year, so I can take advantage of the training opportunities that will be availble to me this summer---gotta get cut, get healthy and kick ass.




I heard one of my teacher's past students was invited to grapple in Suadi Arabia or some other middle-east country ... Unagoto, Obagato or something like that. Have you heard of it?

I think you mean Abu Dhabi. It's the world championship essentially, of no-gi submission work. I'm gunning to compete in the USA Abu Dhabi Trials.

But, back to the original purpose of the thread: Celebrating Ma Po Tofu.

[Taomonkey]

Dude,
Where is the link?

please share the recipe with us all

[Merryprankster]

http://www.1vacation.com/mapotofu.html

Hot Bean Paste is Preserved Horse Beans and Chili Paste

One of the things about Chinese ingredients, if you don't know how to read Chinese, is you've got to know what you're looking at, or be able to identify what you are looking at from the label list.

Sichuan Peppercorns come in about 5 names, or are completely mislabeled, etc...

[norther practitioner]

You'd love a couple of places here in town...:)
I've been experimenting lately with different tofu dishes, I tend to like the really firm tofu, but I think thats just a personal thing.

[Merryprankster]

Oh, sometimes Chinese spices come with just the scientific name as the translation. So, best to know those too.

[ShaolinTiger00]

What are the main differences between Hunan, Szechuan, Cantonese, etc. ?

[norther practitioner]

Where the recipes are from:D

Spices, what was available for ingredients, etc...

I think I read something on the web about it.. I'll try to find the link.

[David Jamieson]

mmmmmmmmm tasty! tofualicious :D

[norther practitioner]

Another general thing is that Peking has a bunch of fried dishes, where cantonese has more steamed.

[David Jamieson]

south (cantonese) - sweet and sour

north (sichuan) - hot and spicy

but those aren't hard lines, just generalisms in the cuisine from the areas.

cheers

[ShaolinTiger00]

thanks KL, but even I knew that! I was hoping for some more specific information.

[mantis108]

Well, there are many different cooking techniques and flavors just within the Canton province. In fact, different perfectures, county, villages, etc have different flavors. Sweet and sour is just popular with most westernized Chinese restaurants. I think the origin of sweet and sour pork (there is a better version using leaner spare ribs) was from Canton city. So it is more a city dish. BTW, Thai people took the concept and make a 3 flavors pan fried fish dish. Typical Cantonese dishes would be really wide range (steaming, stir fries, etc...) lots of different types of sources, non expensive ingredients (ie fish heads, pork guts, veges, toufo, etc...), Soups (especially herbal), and wild games (including dogs). Coastal, creeks or river regions get more fish dishes. The use of dried or preserved ingredients is also very typical Cantonese cooking.

So within Canton there are man different regional favorites, like Hakka, Chiu Chow, San Shui, Shun De, etc... Not to mention Hong Kong has blended many of these regions dishes into its own.

Wild games and soup are a must in order to appreciate Cantonese cuisine.

Anyway, yum yum!

Mantis108

[Nick Forrer]

Hey

Dont know if any of you guys are in to thai food but there is tjhis soup which im addicted to at the moment called Tom Yung Gung soup. Its an almost clear soup with Lemon grass, chilli, mushrooms, tomato and king prawns and **** me if it isnt the best soup known to man kind!

[Merryprankster]

ST00,

You asked a really tough question! And Mantis108 gave a pretty good specific answer, in the sense that even then, it varies from region to region and place to place within the province, but here are some general guidelines:

Cantonese cooking is light, overall. The flavors are simple, but aromatic. Saucing is applied with a light hand to allow the natural flavor of the ingredients to shine through. Use of aggressive flavors is minimal. Good Cantonese is quite tasty, but subtle and balanced. A great example would be the classic chow mein--a thin layer of noodles cooked and pan fried until crispy (quite different from the deep fried travesty some people think is chow mein), then served with whatever meat you're using, and an array of fresh vegetables on top, depending on where you are, in a light sauce made mostly with good chicken stock, with only a little soy, garlic, ginger, sugar, salt and rice wine. The style you are probably most familiar with is Cantonese.

Sweet and sour is a classic dish, but its usually very poorly done in the U.S. Too much cornstarch and sugar. Too much batter. It's a greasy, gloppy mess.

Szechuan and Hunan cooking is much more aggressive. Flavors are bolder. There is a heavy use of flavored oils. It's rougher, with more bite. Less sugar, more salt. Soy sauce use is heavier, preserved and fermented ingredients are common to add depth, bite and edge to the dish. Increased garlic and ginger use. Szechuan cuisine, is, of course, dinstinguished from its other counterparts through the use of the *****ly ash berry (Szechuan peppercorn) which has an astringent, numbing quality in the mouth and is quite pleasant when used appropriately, and especially in conjunction with hot peppers.

Most places caliming Hunan or Szechuan are, in fact, Cantonese places of mediocre quality who slap some hot chili paste or dried chili into a standard , pre-mixed "brown sauce" and call it Szechuan and Hunan. Ugh.

Nick, Tom Yung Gung rocks.

[ShaolinTiger00]

excellent answer Mp, exactly what i was looking for. It's easy to tell that you're a good cook because you use the perfect adjectives to describe the taste!

[Merryprankster]

ST00,

Thanks! I try.

Understand that as with most things, this is sort of a sweeping generality. You'll find examples in either cuisine that contradict my posting.

If I had to guess, I would bet that Cantonese as we are familiar with it is city cooking and that Hunan and Szechuan are rural.

[ShaolinTiger00]

gotcha.

[norther practitioner]

Yeah, little known fact is that greasy grimey gopher guts is a recipe that the people in Alabama adopted from the people of northern china (originally called greasy grimey dog entrails).