Sichuan Mapo Tofu, plus a (hopefully educational) look at the CIA Textbook's version (麻婆豆腐)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 พ.ค. 2019
- A special two year anniversary video! We wanted to revisit Mapo Tofu, probably the most popular tofu dish on the planet. A while back we made a video on Mapo Tofu, and while we still like that recipe, we wanted to improve it to get a bit closer to Chengdu.
And just for fun, we decided to place our new recipe up against the recipe for Mapo Tofu from The Professional Chef, the textbook for the Culinary Institute of America. While one look at the thumbnail could probably tell you that there's a few problems there, we wanted to take the time to explore and show you how precisely that recipe errs. Hopefully, in the process, we can impart some guidelines... some things to avoid. After all, sometimes learning how not to do something can be just as - if not more - illuminating than how to do something.
Footage of the Mapo Tofu from Chen's in Chengdu is courtesy of the channel "Itchy Feet on the Cheap". Lots of food travel videos over on their channel. You can find the full video here:
• Mapo Tofu - Why I Move...
Footage of the canteen is courtesy of TH-camr “欧文老师”. It's the canteen of Zhejiang University - he seems to upload sporadically but has a few vlogs up if you'd like to check him out. In Chinese. Check out the full video here:
• 【浙大Vlog】EP.2 浙大食堂超便宜？吃...
Written recipe is over here on /r/cooking:
/ recipe_sichuan_mapo_to...
/ chinesecookingdemystified
Outro Music: "Add And" by Broke For Free
/ broke-for-free
ABOUT US
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Learn how to cook real deal, authentic Chinese food! We post recipes every Tuesday (unless we happen to be travelling) :)
We're Steph and Chris - a food-obsessed couple that lives in Shenzhen, China. Steph is from Guangzhou and loves cooking food from throughout China - you'll usually be watching her behind the wok. Chris is a long-term expat from America that's been living in China and loving it for the last nine years - you'll be listening to his explanations and recipe details, and doing some cooking at times as well.
This channel is all about learning how to cook the same taste that you'd get in China. Our goal for each video is to give you a recipe that would at least get you close to what's made by some of our favorite restaurants here. Because of that, our recipes are no-holds-barred Chinese when it comes to style and ingredients - but feel free to ask for tips about adaptations and sourcing too! - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Hey guys, a few notes:
1. I know that I continuously referred to Mapo Tofu as a 'stir fry' when discussing the CIA version. Obviously, Mapo Tofu is a braised/simmered tofu dish at it's core, but stir-frying was just the cooking technique employed by *the CIA version*. Hope that wasn't too confusing.
2. With the benefit of hindsight, I believe that the reason the textbook called for such a lengthy time stir-frying was because they were crowding their wok. Huge portion + normal wok + standard stove (I assume the were using the Western restaurant range, ~30k BTU) = lower temperatures. The vegetables are going to release water and steam instead of properly stir-frying.
3. I think the reason why improperly portioned stir-fries bother me is because they end up feeding into the whole idea that you *need* a jet engine burner to fry things properly. Folks read an ostensibly reliable resource like the Professional Chef, attempt to stir-fry 2.5kg of stuff at a time, fail to get a nice result, and then go online to ask what they did wrong. The chorus then predictably replies: "you need a stronger stove". Sigh. You know what they say about craftsmen blaming their tools...
4. So how would we go about improving the CIA stir-fry? Check out Wang Gang's video on Jiachang Tofu (we'll make that dish one day, promise): th-cam.com/video/Lj8BtNeDuaM/w-d-xo.html We'd use that and the seasoning as a base, cooking it with the mushrooms, snow peas, and bell pepper (slice the pepper into diamonds instead of a batonnet). If you'd like beef to be a part of it, you could prep it in accordance to the "how to stir fry beef" vid - i.e. marinate with water, salt, sugar, soy sauce, liaojiu wine, dark soy sauce, cornstarch, egg white, do a quick pass through oil after deep frying the tofu. Scrap the bean sprouts.
5. It bears repeating that The Professional Chef is a great book, highly recommended. It just doesn't know what it's talking about on the subject of Chinese food.
6. I might've been a bit too harsh in the narration on the subject of Black Bean Sauce with Garlic. Plenty of cooks use the ingredient. We just... don't like it. Just our personal opinion. Guess we'll never get a Lee Kum Kee sponsorship lol (they make great Char Siu sauce! Their oyster sauce is ok!)
7. So what about our original video? The biggest differences are (1) we used beef this time (2) we used chili flakes, and more of them (3) we added chopped douchi in (4) we didn't season with sugar and vinegar. Honestly, we kind of like both. We like the addition of the sugar and dark vinegar in the first one we shared.
8. Chili flakes! Don't know what you guys are working with abroad. We were using the chili flakes from Erjingtiao, which're a variety of cayenne. Cayenne flakes would work well (do they sell those? I forget). You could also pulse some Arbols just in case that's not actually a thing.
9. As Steph alluded to in the outro, some places just leave the tofu bubbling and don't thicken with a slurry. It's actually the most old school way to do it.
10. Apologies for the late video, again. This one was a beast to edit (12 min, lots of moving pieces)... lost a whole day yesterday due to my computer deciding not to load its OS. Fun! The written recipe for the Sichuan Mapo Tofu will likely be posted on Sunday... I gotta work all day today, sorry about that.
11. Lastly, the moral of this story shouldn't be "Trust only Chinese Cooking Demystified". While we like to think we do a good job, here's some other resources in English that we would recommend:
- The blog "China Sichuan Food" (she's from Sichuan, but does food from all over China)
- Kiam Lam Kho. Wrote Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees and also has a blog called RedCook
- Adam Liaw. SBS host and has a TH-cam Channel
- Fuschia Dunlop. Has a number of cookbooks. Particularly shines with street snacks
- Grace Young. Has a number of cookbooks
- The (sadly) now-defunct Art of Cooking. TH-cam channel, probably the best resource out there for American-Chinese takeout stuff
Broadly speaking, it's the 'generalists' that seem to put out the most cringy recipes. The only generalist that I can think of that consistently put out solid Chinese recipes is J. Kenji Lopez Alt from SeriousEats and Food Lab fame. Probably the greatest recipe writer of our generation (... yeah, I'm a fanboy).
That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure I'll edit this with some more in a bit!
Do you guys really eat mapo tofu with chopsticks? I just pick it up with a spoon and straight into my mouth. More convenient to pick up minced pork as well lol
Big fan of Kenji’s stuff. Honestly one of the things that drew me to your channel was that I thought your methodical approach to cooking instruction was highly reminiscent of Kenji’s. Keep up the good work and I hope you guys are drafting a good, method and principle focused cookbook quietly in the background :)
Congratulations on 2 years guys, you should be very proud of this milestone
@Zeke Tran Both are legit IMO. For me personally, it depends if I'm eating it for lunch by myself (spoon) or if it's outside with a bunch of people in the context of a larger meal (chopsticks) :)
I go by the recipe supplied by the Ma La Market, where I get my spices and pixian doubanjiang from. Its far closer to what you folks outlined here (the Sichuanese version that you stated was the authentic version). In fact, they have 3 year pixian doubanjiang! That cookbook version was just wack...
I'm sure I'm not the only one confused why the CIA would teach its spies how to cook Mapo Tofu.
They thought they could blend in with the Chinese easily, but obviously they fail horribly. They should probably spy on how to make authentic Chinese food first.
hahahha the CIA gotta step up their game
@Timefliesbye Chinese restaurant in America that serve to the American. God damn, no wonder they failed horribly. Either the CIA were dumb, or the Chinese were smart to lay out fake "authentic" Chinese restaurant to trap them.
...Culinary Institute of America/CIA ... CCD is a GREAT Channel , very well thought out...Thank you CCD.
That’s their weapon of choice 😂
im gonna be honest, my main motivation for watching this video was wondering what weird ass top secret anti-communist operation required the US Government to develop a mapo tofu recipe specifically for the CIA... then i realized it was the Culinary Institute of America and NOT the Central Intelligence Agency. but i learned a lot!
dear god :o
Ya i wanted to know what the "Secret" sauce was too...
Same!
Same. In my defence, I live in the U.K. lol.
My man you did this recipe justice. When I read the cia version i was like fool! That's not mapo tofu that's a panda express stir fry.
Dude here's the crazy thing: Panda express is *better*.
Apparently Panda Express sells Mapo Tofu in their Switzerland locations (who knew?)... this is what it looks like: cdn.smood.ch/restaurants/57a7d08b52d038286a738a38/products/57a7d08c52d038286a738a56/default.jpg
A sentence that I never thought I'd say: "say what you will about Panda Express, at least they're better than the premier culinary school in the United States"
Without so much Panda in it.
Mike Chen was in South Korea recently and visited the Panda Express there and also said he was surprised how good the mapo tofu was!
@@ChineseCookingDemystified never tried mapo tofu from Panda express but at least in here they properly stir fry their veggies >
@@Sk0lzky my panda does. Big woks and fire. Bit of color I would cook them longer at home but it's pretty tall for fast food
"An oddly miniscule amount of minced garlic" boy if that doesn't describe just about every Western recipe I've ever seen
Ah, come on. There are plenty of western dishes that use lots of garlic
my dad taught me to add extra garlic, ginger, and onion to recipes lol
more like pretentious western "gourmet" food..
Western garlic is usually more intense than Asian garlic. Or at least I've heard so.
I'm Italian American, so I think I'm in the clear lol
The Mapo tofu that will break relationships and get you evicted
PipSaSqeak want to explain the meme to me？
@@unitheg6839 watch the video
As CIA always do
If you make the CIA version again, I will divorce you.
@@unitheg6839 The relationship with neighbours
I lived in Chengdu for over 5 years and my landlord the bulk of that time was a retired Sichuanese chef from a higher end hotel. He'd always invite me over to cook and teach me how to make things.
I'll always remember the advice he gave me for eating out (in Chengdu, anyway). He said to always order Mapo tofu first. Mapo tofu is a dish every restaurant and chef makes pretty differently, so if the Mapo tofu was good there was a good chance everything else would be decent.
Good tip~ we'll definitely be using that next time when we are in Chengdu.
3 more must orders in addition to those. Egg fried rice, stir-fried green pepper potato slices and fish scent meat slices. If all three of dishes are good, chances are you have a winner restaurant. Learned from an old uncle who used to be a master chef. It tests their ability to the limit. Egg fried rice for the longer stirfries and their ability to control the portions and stir-fried green pepper potato slices for their ability to control the heat and time and finally, fish scent meat slices is a test on their ability to flavour balance correctly. These three tests are qualification exams for master chefs. If they can cook these properly, they are probably qualified to cook with the best.
There’s also rice liangfen, made with some kind of rice starch pudding and chunky brisket beef. I guess that’s rice and protein in one pot.
Good advice, we'll try it
I miss Chengdu food! So lucky to have a retired chef to guide you through the best dishes. :)
I have this book and while the theory part is solid, I found huge mistakes in many Italian recipes... it was very disappointing, tbh, I was mildly shocked... and it made me question all the other recipes too. I’m aware that restaurant cooking for 100 pax is different from home cooking, but classic recipes should have been researched better. It’s not a cheap book and it’s meant to be a textbook, a reference book. Plus Italian cooking can’t possibly be a mystery, these days, even for American chefs... very puzzling. I remember googling the hell out of it in a “did anyone notice THAT??” way and not founding much uproar about it, which was even more puzzling. I really appreciate you taking the time to show people how different the real version is.
Yeah I suppose in some ways, it's a classic case of Gell-Mann amnesia. Here's a nice video of Matt Colville explaining what that is: th-cam.com/video/-RIscpbQzhA/w-d-xo.html
In some ways, I even agree with his ultimate conclusion when it comes to cooking. I think it's OK for generalists to not get every single detail correct. That's fine, and understandable. E.g. take a look at Thomas Joseph's how to stir fry video. Not complete, a little off, but fine for a beginner. No misinformation. I think it's fair to ask for the general crux of something to be right :)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Matt Colville and Chinese Cooking Demystified together?? My heart just skipped a beat, this is a good day
@Liam Flynn haha I was wondering how many of our viewers were fellow TTRPG gamers...
Vi I i
@@ChineseCookingDemystified wild
Szechuan Mapo Tofu: This Sparks Joy
CIA Mapo Tofu: This does not Spark Joy
when you strike together imaginary flints, you create only the illusion of fire.
CIA Mapo Tofu: This Spies at Joy
@@whazzat8015 what do you mean by that?
@@DanielkaElliott How do you spark joy with an imaginary flint?
@@whazzat8015 some people have a strong imagination
As someone who went to the CIA at Graystone for culinary education back in '09 I'd have to say that the recipes in that book for "ethnic" cuisines are outright stupid... Even our instructors in cuisines of Asia told us so, luckily for my class we had a chef for that course that was a professional Cantonese / szechuan chef and pointed out what was wrong with many of the recipes and we all had a nice giggle then we were passed recipes that more accurate for the course work. The Professional Chef book while good at teaching basics of french haute cuisine doesn't do any justice to things outside of french haute cuisine...much like the french today as egocentric as they are in bastardizing everything to make it "french", thanks Escoffier. I mean hell I had to teach our class how to properly make sushi as before I attended CIA I worked as a sushi bish for 8 months and the recipes in the book were so off that the "sushi" we made had no flavor; vinegar, sugar, rice does not sushi make. So while yes this was the book we used and yes it still collects dust on my shelf do no think that this is the education that we all got... can't say much for those slops over at the Hyde Park campus; I've met and dated a few of them and my god I think they must have taught directly to the book. Anyways, thanks for the video just enjoying some mapo doufu tonight that I learned to make from a Cantonese friend back in grade school, cheers.
I don't want y'all to waste food making wack book version recipes...but I'd love to see this as a series.
With final video "how you get evicted in China"?
if we value our relationship. don't follow cookbooks. learn from old people with a quest icon on their head
For English language recipe books I highly recommend Fuchsia Dunlop! She's a British lady who studied at a culinary arts school in Sichuan. As someone who grew up eating Sichuan food, including spending two years in Chongqing, her recipes have been the closest I've gotten to recreating the flavors I grew up with.
This is my issue with a lot of the CIA's recipes in general and their general theory on teaching cooking at all. They start with large dumbed down versions that are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator instead of teaching the actual dish and the theory behind it first. If you want to know why the food you get in most American hotels, even abroad, is so mediocre, this is why. Our premier culinary institute teaches a guiding philosophy of cooking that puts saving money, efficiency, and mass appeal over real food.
It's not that their teaching is bad, but with a lofty name like The Culinary Institute of America, you'd expect a more masterclass level of education.
I have been around CIA for 50 years. They always had an institutional orientation, not artistic. It's a school of restaurant management that tries to hire artists that cross over.
Isn't the CIA simply a shortcut to becoming a real chef? It's supposed to give you a good basic education on cooking in a short amount of time, rather than mastery of a particular type of cuisine you would get by working at a top restaurant/with a top chef that specialized in that.
the ironic thing is consumers seem to have a more refined taste these days, they crave authenticity, so cutting costs in such a situation is actually losing potential money
So this CIA is to blame for the "carbonara" done with peas and cooking cream? Asking for a friend.
@@RedBloodyGirl I have no idea where that came from. Probably some home and garden magazine from the 70's. That's where a lot of that kind of adulteration comes from. I've found a stroganoff recipe that uses a teaspoon of ketchup... it puzzled me until I realized that it was in place of paprika. Gross.
The moral of this video is to watch Chinese cooking demystified and learn the authentic way of cooking Chinese food 😊
What for if I happen to hate an "authentic" dish and like something else? No doubt you want to force people to eat "authentic" dishes only. And here I thought it was the Left that was stuck up on "authenticity" instead of realizing that people have been changing their cooking to copy what they like from other cultures they come into contact with for countless millennia. Where exactly did you think Asians got chili peppers and corn starch from, considering that both corn and peppers are native to the Americas? Fuck Donald Trump.
@@robinlillian9471 I was just speaking tongue-in-cheek, cook whatever you enjoy :)
Mapo Tofu is one of my favorite dishes of all time. The first time I had it was at a little Chinese restaurant in Indiana that was a little nicer then most of the "hole in the wall" places across the U.S. I was ruined because they made it like this. (Mind you it is a little different because it is a family recipe, but overall very similar.) Later I moved with my family and while in another Chinese resturant I saw Mapo Tofu on the menu and got excited because I loved the previous one so much. What I got was this stir-fried tofu thing. I bounced around looking for another dish that could rival my first love. I found ones that were not spicy, ones that were brown, ones that had weird veges, and some that were good. I learned to make the dish myself. Through terrible cookbooks and trial and error I learned to make something that was okay. I've now had another move and found a dedicated Sichuan restaurant and their Mapo Tofu is better then the first one I had. (Thats what led me to this video.) Now I am wanting to try to make it again and am very excited to try this recipe. I am glad you talk about the methods and why. Thank you so much!
OMG that CIA recipe actually makes me angry. Sacrilege! Reminds me of an argument I had at a hipster beer & bao joint in Sydney a couple of weeks ago, where I ordered kimchi as a side dish and got a slaw dressed with spicy mayo. When I complained au was told it was their ‘interpretation’ of kimchi. WTF.
I love ma po tofu but I’m picky about where I order it. I came to cooking it at home through Neil Perry’s Balance & Harmony recipe, which not only results in the right taste but is good on technique.
We googled the "beer and bao" place in Sydney, food seems...alright. The same kind of stuff you'll see on Instagram #foodie and hipster joints, lol. But yeah, "spicy mayo", "siracha"... all the popular element you need.
This is Steph. The bao was fine, the fillings are middling. In particular their ‘Korean beef with Kimchi’ was very average in composition - not exactly bad but kind of hitting neither the best of the bao nor being a anything like good Korean. Would have been great if only they could just bring themselves to use actual kimchi which is readily available in Koreatown. Sigh. Don’t get me started on the iterations if mapo tofu. I find that a good rule of thumb for ordering mapo in an Asian food court is whether they cook other szechuan dishes - if they don’t it’s not worth the trouble. Another contra-indicator is the addition of green peas.
Imagine interpretation sushi that's just canned anchovies
Interpretation steak that's just sloppy joes
If I ordered kimchi and got that I would be throwing hands
Renn Raven don’t worry - I made them give me my money back .
The minute I saw their MaPo tofu without a generous amount of that "chili soup", I knew it was going to be basically stir-fried tofu with leftover vegetables you would make at home...
I can feel the panic during the CIA stirfry step. I get less stressed during intense horror movies.
the CIA "version" is just... not mapo tofu. I know the video alluded to this already but it's as if somebody had a recipe for "fish and chips" but then made a pan fried fish skillet- you can't really "compare" it with the original recipe since it's just something else at this point. This is pretty clearly meant to imitate 家常豆腐 (jiā cháng dòu fǔ), and imo it would've been a better video to compare it to that.
"Steph's yelling at me for wasting the food" omg dead 🤣
OH THAT'S WHY MY MAPO TOFU DIDN'T WORK! I'm watching the video now and got to the point where you went into the type of tofu. I always thought silken and soft tofu were the same thing. I tried to make this one time using Maangchi's recipie and my sauce turned out GREAT but my tofu practically exploded into pieces immediately, even with me being as careful as I could. This makes so much more sense now thank you! I haven't made it again cause I was so afraid of the same thing happening.
Also, that CIA version of Mapo Tofu is ridiculous. I've never seen another version other than the correct one because the first time I heard about was through Maangchi. It's not even remotely in the same ballpark! Damn.
That's why i love the internet. When i first started cooking i used shitty chinese recipes in spanish from books or magazines, and while they were not bad, they are not at all similar to the ones i now cook from your channel and many websites. Not only are they better, but in doing so i have learned a lot of techniques, new ingredients, chinese culture and history and even some words.
It's been quite a journey this whole cooking "traditional" chinese food and thank you guys for also being part of all this learning and experience.
“Learn first before you try to alter, change, or improve” YASSSS 🙌🙌👏👏👏
As a CIA grad, I can attest to the problems in some of their cookbooks. The Pro Chef version is SSOOOOO much better than the old blue version I learned on. We never got a textbook for Oriental cooking when I was there in 81. Thank you for sharing your experience and skills. I continue to learn from chefs like you.
I really appreciate what you two do. I have been crazy about Chinese food since I was in high school. I began cooking it myself back in the 80s. I can't tell you how hard it was to find decent recipes when I first started. I was in Beijing several years ago and took a cooking class while I was there. My hotel was near the exit of the Forbidden City and there was a tiny street market near the hotel. I was able to finally have some really delicious Chinese food. I have a friend who said to me, once you have had food in China, it will be very hard to eat in a Chinese American restaurant. There is truth in what she said.
Putting three vegetables at the same time seems erroneous even by Western cuisine practices. Specially if one of them is mushrooms
Especially a _Japanese_ mushroom.
K A lmao, you’re not wrong. Americans love their slop. You’ll pry garbage breakfast plates from my cold, greasy hands
I'm pretty sure it's based of American Chinese cooking (or American Asian cooking in general) where every single dish is loaded with a crap ton of veggie (bean sprout or bell pepper most of the time) to add mass/volume and cut down on cost (so that they don't have to use a lot of meat/seafood/noddle).
Most asian dishes are either just meat or just veggie(+ carb sometime), if you order seafood fried noodle in Asia you can expect a dish of mostly seafood and noodle but in North America, it's 50% bean sprout, 40% noodle and 10% shrimp/squid
Sorry, I need to make a second comment! :o
What's with Westernized Chinese recipes using so much snow peas and bean sprouts? They *are* ingredients eaten in China, but I rarely find them used as such in actual Chinese dishes. So how did Western chefs get the idea to use them to make their dishes seem Chinese style, and how are they typically eaten in China?
I even wonder if it's just an American oddity. Bean sprouts and somehow snow peas have become associated with oriental cooking (here in the U.S. I've never seen or heard of either in other cuisines), but snow peas are from Europe. A Cantonese name for snow pea sounds suspiciously like "Holland beans".
We have the same question... it's everywhere...
Bean sprouts are a common Asian ingredient. You'll usually find it in noodle dishes though.
hultonclint from Singapore and lived in Beijing for four years. In Chinese food bean sprouts are usually a garnish for crunch or a simple side dish made with soy or vinegar. I rarely saw them put into stir fries unless in a small proportion for crunch. Same with snow peas.
You can simply fry them with salt and a little soy sauce.
Am I the only one who thought ... Wait! the Central Intelligence Agency has a cookbook?
well there's one written by William Powell, CIA seemed to really like it back in the day
There’s also an anarchist cookbook
@@meowkie8549 I really like her as a person and a cook -- and will acquire her book at some point.
Yeah, I also think the same too, Munroe.
Actually the Central Intelligence Agency did put out a cookbook. If you can find it, it's called Spies, Black Ties and Mango Pies.
I love the narration in this video and the concept as a whole. I'm looking forward to the next two years already.
You have by far the best Chinese cooking channel. You made me discover real Chinese cooking. A cuisine of a complexity and variety I didn’t know existed. Congratulations on your 2 years!
"I value my relationship, so I'm not going to do that" ahahahahahahahaa so much respect here. :) I would love to meet you and Steph on my way to visit my grandma
The purpose of your channel comes across right away. I felt the same way about figuring out Chinese cooking and your channel was the first resource I found that felt like I was legitimately "demystifying" Chinese cooking for once and learning about unique ingredients and techniques you simply never have access to learning here.
I've been following this channel for about a year now and I seriously love it!!! Before you guys came to TH-cam every attempt I did at Chinese food was lackluster, but now I'm actually improving! Thank you SO much!!!
I rarely cook but i do know that mapo tofu in CIA textbook is pretty much off
i mean it looks like stir fry from leftovers, mapo tofu is more like tofu bathing in lava or something like that
Made this last night. Hands down the most authentic Sichuan dish I've made and it was great. I was able to find the same Doubanjiang in Australia and the depth that this gives the dish is fabulous. Thank you!
The best channel on TH-cam for Chinese cooking! Congratulations on reaching two years! Here's to another 2 years of great Chinese cooking!
Yall are my FAVORITE Chinese cooking channel BY FAR. And I watch a lot of em. I dont speak or read a lick of Chinese, but am fascinated by the food varieties. Your channel makes it accessible to a Texan! Keep it up. I LOVE YALLS CHANNEL!
I would love to see more of these Mythbusters style of cooking video tackling all the mistakes made by popular sources on Chinese cooking. Maybe some people don't like the idea of criticizing other recipes, but you just learn so much about what makes these recipes work by also seeing flawed implementations.
Congratulations with the two year anniversary. I'm looking forward to a lot more videos to come and wish you a continuously growing number of subscribers.
The great leap forward in my cooking came with vod on youtube etc. Being able to watch the actual making of a dish teaches me more than any cookbook can do. It's like my virtual grandmother :--)
God this is a funny one. Also educational, eye-opening and inspirational to boot. I think your formula of being so straight-edge and well-written makes those humorous bits all the more entertaining because it's breaking the mold and catching the viewer off-guard. Can't get enough of your channel!
After watching your hour long conversation with Kenji I had to come back and watch this video for the 5th time since it came out. Love it! Please make more, so many unique and helpful lessons in the comparison.
THANK YOU so much for this video. I fell in love with Mapo Tofu when I was living in South Korea (I had an authentic Chinese restaurant just around the corner from my apartment), but I haven't been able to find a good method since coming home to the States. Followed your method tonight for the Sichuan Mapo Tofu, and it was fantastic. Thank you especially for your discussion about how to properly fry the Pixian Doubanjiang to get the proper red coloring to the dish. I've never worked with Pixian before, and it was particularly helpful. Looking forward to trying more of the recipes you've discussed from your channel!
Hey ! Just tried the recipe (not the CIA one of course) ! It is just amazing... Rich and complex... Really it is a must... Once again an incredible recipe on this channel !! Thank you for these two years !
I fully agree on the point of view and how hard it is to find good recipies in english/french for chinese dishes! Many thanks to you guys, it helps me a lot!
Just found this video and it is very helpful. I love how yall break it down into the why and how the dish is the way it is. I also love the simplicity of the dish (although they are Chinese ingredients, they are still easy to find.) Thank you! Much love from the Midwest!
This CIA mapo tofu crushed my hopes and dreams when I was a fresh off the boat student trying to get some Chinese food from local restaurant
Did you actually eat that somewhere?
@@thisissteph9834 It was actually called something something Sichuan bean curd on the menu instead of mapo tofu, but It's the same recipe.
@@importedriceco LOL. I hope you found something else that's more palatable after this unfortunate event.
@@thisissteph9834 I just hope he has better hopes and dreams.
This reminds me of the time I moved to a town where the inhabitants would criticize Vietnamese restaurants for not having good sushi.
Absolutely brilliant stuff. Well well done! Keep spreading the word!
Just as a bit of feedback, this is the first video of yours I ran across, and I've been a fan for the two years (as of this date) since, and expect to be a fan as long as you keep making them!
Thank you for two years of videos!
I loved the Dunning-Krueger reference! Your videos have helped me in the kitchen immensely, and they are fun.
I'll be skipping the CIA version and going straight for yours. Love your stuff always; keep it coming.
I am loving this channel so much, thank you. I'm going to 99 ranch market next week to get everything I need to make real mapo tofu. I had it once when I was a young vegetarian, but other take-out attempts have been sad, watery, flavorless brown liquid without a hint of spice, one had soggy peas even?
Tofu is so heavenly by itself, soy is truly a miracle plant. The best soy milk I've ever had was from an asian grocery store, I think it was h-mart or 99 ranch market... good as gold. It was much more freshly pressed and really highlighted the soy flavor. It was much fuller and richer in taste than silk or any of the typical soy milk sold in american grocery stores.
Thank you for helping teach me how to make mapo tofu! Because of your channel I picked up shaoxing wine, doubanjiang, prickly ash and learned how to make my fave restaurant dish at home. You made it very easy to follow :)
I'm a subscriber to ATK and was happy to see them do a truly authentic Mapo with actual douchi and slowly braised doubanjiang. Good for them: I've met several of the guys there, including Keith, Dan, and Lan, and they really do an insane amount of research.
I hope you guys can put together some kind of cookbook someday! Would be fun reading about your stories, experiences/ history in China and having all of these great recipes and ingredients right there all the time. Big supporter! Keep up the great content!
Great job on this video. It's not just the CIA textbook that has such poor recipes. There are so many others! Thank you for highlighting this and giving me a channel I can watch that is both authentic and informative. Looking forward to seeing more!
Thank you for the great recipe! I used the "Juan Cheng Pai" Doubanjiang and with 3 Tbsp it came out too salty. If you had the same issue, just use 2 Tbsp instead, you still get all the flavor but it's just less salty. :)
I love the subtle sass in this video. Calling the CIA out while being super polite about it haha. If its any consolation, the Mapo I've had in Melbourne, Australia has always been like the proper Sichuan version. There's hope for us Westerners yet!
Your channel is the best resource I have for learning this stuff. Thank you so much for making it free on TH-cam!
Well, still do the ads/Patreon thing so we're not saints or anything ;)
I usually do not leave comments but I wanted to say I have learned a lot from your videos. Thank you for your time!
你很专业啊！！this is professional stuff!!
*CIA, open up. We are dragging you back to America for perjury*
🤣 love your channel, very accurate. Many good memories of my China experience.
Great recipe. I am going over to a dinner party tomorrow with some friends who suggested we make Mapo Tofu. I had no idea what to expect , now I feel I can wow them with my new found knowledge. Mahalo.
Never had Mapo Tofu before. Looked really yummy so I made this tonight for my best friend and me. This is now my favorite meal ever!!! So good! So much flavor! I am lucky to have a great store nearby that sells a good chili bean paste and fermented black beans. Thank you so much for this recipe.
I followed this recipe and it was some of the most delicious food I have ever made, even despite the fact that the fermented beans and chili paste were probably not the exact right product (I can't read chinese and the english translations were lacking.) This was also my first experience with sichuan peppercorns and they have immediately become one of my favorite spices.
I also followed this recipe and it was also some of the most delicious food I've ever made! Mine wasn't quite so red because the doubanjiang I have is darker, but the flavor was absolutely amazing
I love the way even the "shitty" version looks fantastic and way better than the one in the book.
Oh man this turned out SO GOOD! Thanks for sharing, I can't wait to try some of your other recipes!
This was really educational. Also love the humor sprinkled in throughout the video.
The book version is at most 家常豆腐, and that’s putting it charitably
yeah, it's pretty much just a tofu stir fry with leftover veggies like you'd make on a weeknight at home.
Lol lots of cookbooks just copy recipes even without tried em. They dont work at all. But your recipes all so amazing!! Henxie !!! Love ur videos. I learnt lots of chinese dishes from you ! Shifu xD
It's really quite sad, that it's so normal for people to take certain recipes at face value. They expect that since someone else told them, that the recipe was correct, that it also then is correct, without checking themselves. So basically always be a little critical whenever someone try to tell you what is, and is not correct.
You are my new favourite channel. I appreciate you taking the time and effort to make these videos and allow me to elevate my cooking skills. Your work is invaluable!
XD I love that "I value my relationship" comment
Gonna get my butt set up to cook these recipes better! Thank you thank you thank you!
I make your mapo tofu recipe almost every 2 weeks. It's just so delicious! Thank you for sharing.
I hate how a lot of "Western" oriented versions of tofu dishes are obsessed with: 1. Firm tofu 2. Deep frying it.
I've always interpreted that as someone being scared of tofu. They think tofu is some gross, gelatinous, tasteless thing. They think the firmer the better will make it less gross, along with the fact that they think it is a substitute for meat. And again, they worry about taste so they think it is only palatable if deep fried. This goes back to the idea of tofu as a supposedly substandard substitute for meat that vegetarians suffer, and that even these vegetarians or "health nuts" (lol) will only tolerate the firm and fried.
Anyway, that's what I've personally concluded after a million years eating tofu... I literally eat it almost every morning and I'm in love with eating it... but it's like a dirty secret that I can't share with my non-Chinese friends or others sympathetic to real Chinese food, because those ppl just think I'm being deliberately weird and contrarian. They can't fathom why I even bother with tofu. I, on the other hand, a non-Chinese person have my own prejudice: I think people who don't recognize the greatness of Chinese food are like some kind of undeveloped babies, whose palate has never matured.
Until recently most chinese food places near me were crappy fast food places. I'm guessing for the majority of people, their first introduction to tofu is in a really crappy miso soup. That might explain the aversion.
@@Leto_0 You might be right.
What I mostly saw, in my time, was that tofu sitting in water would be a part of those buffet style salad bars, where it would be passed over by people who (understandably) didn't want that blandness and who also thought of it, not as something like an Asian food (e.g. in miso soup) but as a hippie New Age meat replacement. So in the context of a Western entity presenting a Chinese dish with tofu, they were doing it to satisfy vegetarians, and they had to play to what they assumed Western vegetarians wanted, like "I want a Chinese stir fry, like spicy pepper beef and snow peas and beansprouts, but I'm a veggie, just please substitute tofu for the beef."
toufu in china has 500 forms，some of them you will not access to it until you come to China
@@xuzha1683 But in 美国 I can get access to that doufu if I use VPN.
Soft tofu is 'bland', 'tasteless', and has a texture most westerners don't enjoy.
Who is being harmed by people wanting to have firm tofu cooked, and crisped up? At the end of the day, our species evolved by creating fire, and cooking animals. It is in our DNA to eat...anything...that has been through the Maillard reaction.
The CIA version of mapo tofu looks like something a British person would cook.
So would that instead be the MI-6 version?
@@stevencbradley Shut up and take my upvote.
lmaooooooo
You're a moron. It not only looks like, but *is* something an American person would cook.
@@patavinity1262 ive never seen an american mapo dofu, but ive definitely seen this in bad "Chinese" places in the eu
The comparison and helpful "corrections" are great. Love this video
This is the second video of yours, that i have seen, and i am thoroughly impressed !
That footage courtesy of Itchy Feet on the Cheap was really great. Check out their channel everyone!
hahahahahah. "i value my relationship." hahahhahaha
Thanks for making this! I'd love to see more videos where you compare authentic dishes with non-authentic versions. I think it's an interesting way to learn about cuisine through both successes and failures
As someone who grew up in Sichuan, I also bought The Professional Chef book from CIA, and got furious with their Chinese recipes. Nothing is authentic, nor does it taste good. Glad you did this video to show everyone!
I was so stressed watching you cook the CIA version.
Great video (as usual)!! One observation though... You mentioned the CIA version asked for stir frying aromatics and other ingredients for way too long which I do agree is too long. However, you did scale the recipe by 1/3 so it would also mean the time in the recipe should've been adjusted as well. I agree the CIA book is great and it lacks authenticity on "non-Western" cuisine but in this case I just thought it would be fair to bring this up. Keep up the great work!
Yeah I tossed that in the notes. The reason the cooking time was so crazy was likely because they were crowding their wok. But that's sort of a crazy way to write a recipe... imagine writing a recipe for fried chicken *assuming* someone would crowd their fryer! The variability between set-ups would be super intense.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Another thing to remember, is that western gas burners are often significantly lower powered than those used throughout Asia, even portable ones. Even if their recipe had a more sensible amount of ingredients, they would likely still take a fair bit longer "cook". With the full amount overcrowding it, and a long, slow heat, sounds like a great way to get limp soggy vegetables.
Yeah I get that, except the excuse quickly breaks down when you look at the actual power of the burners:
Western home stove: 7k BTUs
Our little camper burner: 9k BTUs
Chinese home range: 14k BTUs
Western professional range: 30k BTUs
Chinese professional range: [100k+ BTUs, does not belong on the same scale]
So as a cookbook for prospective chefs in culinary school, their burner would likely be ~30k BTUs, roughly twice as strong as a standard Chinese home stove and three times as strong as what we were working with.
Ultimately, their cooking times were insane because they crowded their wok, and assumed that the reader would too. I've got a couple beers in me, so I'll be totally frank: it's sloppy cooking, sloppy recipe writing.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Their recipe is baffling in so many ways. My thinking is perhaps those larger volumes (crowding the wok as you say) and lower powers could partially explain those absurd cooking times. Yet even ignoring that, the recipe really is a mess - It's practically a completely different dish. Anyway thanks for the reply, enjoy those beers and have a great evening mate.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Thanks for the calibration
you are probably familiar with Alex-FrenchGuyCooking and his Butane burner wok mods , but it is a big difference in technique that throws folks off.
Wow, this is really interesting! There are a lot of techniques here of which I had been completely unaware, e.g. heating the wok to a point then turning off the heat. I have a lot to learn about Chinese cooking!
This is an awesome video, a great demonstration of your point about how weirdly Western cookbooks handle Chinese cooking. I learned a number of "Chinese" dishes from my mother, things she had worked up from folks like Jeff Smith, and while they were (and are) great dishes, after watching your channel for just a few months it is so clear those dishes have very little to do with actual Chinese cooking.... thanks for all your work and dedication, it is greatly appreciated!!
Also, I gotta say, as an American the references to "CIA" in this video are totally weird and hilarious at the same time... :)
Yeah, "Culinary Institute of America" didn't quite fit on the thumbnail, and I felt "Sichuan vs American Mapo Tofu" would be a little off+clickbaity.
What I find amazing about how so many Western cookbooks get it so wrong is that it's not like there's a shortage of Chinese restaurants in America. Like, yeah, takeout fare isn't all that great or anything but the cooks are still stir-frying things.
the goodness of mapo tofu is to mix it with rice like its curry. the sauce is crucial. the cia version is miles away from it. disappointing but you guys do proper justice to it
Unfortunatly you receive the CIA version on chinese restaurants in the Netherlands. Even if you ask them if they serve traditional mapo tofu. Once a cook told me that Dutch people can't eat Mapo so he refused to serve me....though that was on de the 90's
Bro ga naar Sansan in Rotterdam. Dat is een Sichuanees restaurant. Ook in den haag heb je goede restaurants. Je kunt ook beter zoeken naar restaurants met een specifieke keuken zoals sichuanees, cantonees, pekinees of hakka (als dat er is in nl) in plaats van "chinees" restaurant. In den haag zit geloof ik zelfs een uygur/oeigoers restaurant. Het kanwel ff zoeken zijn.
Fantastic video and fantastic series! In the US we get almost no exposure to authentic chinese dishes, so this is really a unique learning experience.
I think the CIA version is fine (even if not authentic) if the tofu triangles are cut in half again. Then you can eat it with a fork easily enough.
Love your efforts guys. Keep up the good work!
When it said CIA I really did think for a second that the Central Intelligence Agency really actually compiled a bunch of Chinese recipes for.. I dunno, local infiltration? Kek
ThePieMaster219 CIA isn’t doing their research
lmfao same
"Now, I value my relationships, so I'm not going to do that." LOL! Imagine the neighbours
one reason i always come back to this video is how filled to the brim that bowl gets
I've been using Fuschia's recipe for several years and love it but trying out your technique here with some of the additional ingredients is just amazing, have made this already twice this week. I especially love how frying the meat like this releases the oil again, which does then get red. I use indian mustard oil along with peanut oil, a great mix. I also use western leeks in slivers and braise them along with the tofu so they soften a bit, and add scallions at the end because I love them. I definitely appreciate your inclusion of frying temperatures, which is so incredibly helpful for knowing when to do what and for which ingredient, I hope you will always continue to do that in your videos. Excellent channel, thanks so much for sharing;)
Cheers, glad you liked it! The leek alteration makes a lot of sense. Is the Indian mustard seed oil expensive where you live?
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Its about $5 for a 16oz bottle from the little Indian grocery shop I can walk to, western US, it has a fantastic fragrance and flavor. I mix it with Lion & Globe peanut oil from Hong Kong, which also has a fantastic flavor, I much prefer both oils to flavorless generic oils, even if this might not be totally authentic. The surprise ingredient that is difficult to find at times is any toban djian that isn't Lee Kum Kee, I think they get snapped up from the shops very quickly. I would love to see you make a vid showing how to make the homemade version of this spectacular ingredient, although I think even this version takes a few months. Fermentation/experimentation at home now is a huge thing, so it might be far more popular than you think outside China. I'd also love to know how to make a homemade version of ya cai as I grow asian mustards in my garden. I use the Tianjin preserved vegetable from the little ceramic pots in most recipes, that is easy to find if not quite the same thing as ya cai.
lol... I was like "wait the Central Intelligence Agency has a recipe for mapo tofu???"
I actually had that Professional Chef cookbook on "to buy" list, but looks like I'll skip.
It's still a good resource for Western cuisine.
@@DoctorMcHerp I'm hearing that it's actually not that good on Italian cuisine - so...
Aaron Cruz tbh most American cookbooks that cover Italian do it the bastardized American way. The only one I’ve found worthwhile is Auténtico. It captures the simplicity of authentic Italian cooking and embraces the bitterness that’s so often lacking in Italian-American cuisine.
Thank you guys for everything!
I'd love more videos like this! A close comparison of classic recipes and their westernized versions would be most useful to understand some of the misconceptions about chinese cooking in the West (your note n.3 in the first comment was enlightening, I definitely see myself in it!)
this is why i never fully trust any recipes LOL
In fairness, the cooking times got screwed up in the CIA version because CIA assumes you don't have a wok with an open flame. It's written for American homes with a fry pan and an element. Woks get way hotter than pans.
I'm thrilled to have found your channel. I can't wait to attempt this! You guys should make your own cookbook!!
I had mapo tofu for the first time a week ago and was blown away by it. It was maybe a little spicy for me but it was good enough that I just powered through. If I had gotten that CIA version I don't think I would have liked it as much, it just doesn't look as visually appealing to me. In fact, it looks visually confusing. Great video guys!