Chinese Szechuan - Mapo Tofu

My first recipe comes from my favorite "gourmand" show, Shokugeki no Soma, this show takes food to the next level.

Introducing Kuga Terunori's Mapo Tofu.
Mapo doufu or Mapo tofu is a popular Chinese dish from Sichuan province. It consists of tofu set in a spicy sauce, typically a thin, oily, and bright red suspension, based on douban (fermented broadbean and chili paste) and douchi (fermented black beans), along with minced meat, usually pork or beef.

What makes Sichuan cuisine so special

Ma la wei: The combination of Sichuan peppercorns (ma) and dried chilies (la) is perhaps the most known of Sichuan cuisine. Ma denotes pins and needles, and la is the heat and fire.

Sichuan pepper (a berry of the prickly ash tree) has lemony notes and creates a tingly numbness in the mouth. "They produce a strange, tingling, buzzing, numbing sensation that is something like the effect of carbonated drinks or of a mild electrical current (touching the terminals of a nine-volt battery to the tongue). The elements found within the Sichuan pepper appear to act on several different kinds of nerve endings at once, induce sensitivity to touch and cold in nerves that are ordinarily nonsensitive, and so perhaps cause a kind of general neurological confusion.
The balance of both the numbing tingly feeling from the sichuan pepper and the fire element from the dried chilies are not the only thing that make mapo tofu that sensational almost comforting dish.

              There is also the Doubanjiang which is a chili broad bean paste

              As well as the fermented black bean paste.

Mapo tofu recipe:
Ingredients

510 g silken tofu
1 lb minced/ground meat - beef or pork
1 1/2 tablespoons Doubanjiang (broad bean paste)
1/2 tablespoon fermented black bean paste
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes or powder
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoons of salt
1/2 tablespoons Sichuan pepper
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 to 1 1/2 cups of water (or broth)
2 tablespoons of cooking oil
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
5 scallions, the white part for cooking
5 scallion greens for garnish
4 garlic cloves
5 ginger slices
1 teaspoon of sugar, or two pinches

Water starch/ thickener

2 1/2 tablespoons of water
1 tablespoon of potato starch or cornstarch

Instructions

1. Remove the tofu from it's package and carefully slice it into 1 inch slices, the large shapes help the tofu hold it's form during the cooking process.
2. In a deep and wide pan add water to fill it half way or enough to cover the tofu. Add salt to the water, wait till it dissolves and when it starts to boil gently add in the tofu, boil for 5 to 7 minutes.
3. Chop up your garlic and ginger into fine pieces or use a mortar and pestle and grind it to a paste, set aside.
4. Heat up a wok to medium and add your cooking oil, add the sichuan pepper and brown them for 30 seconds, remove from wok, grind into a fresh powder and set aside.
5. Add in your ground/minced meat to the wok and break it down and stir, add the ground black pepper and stir again.
6. Take your doubanjiang and fermented black bean paste and add that to your minced/ground meat.
7. Add the sesame oil, garlic ginger paste, chopped white scallions, red pepper flakes, soy sauce and mix.
8. Add the water/broth to your meat mixture, add your sugar, sprinkle half of your sichuan pepper powder, stir to coat the mixture evenly and cook for 2 minutes.
9. Gently begin to add the tofu to the hot wok.
10. Evenly begin to pour the thickener/ water starch to the minced meat/tofu mix and with a flat spatula begin to move the mapo tofu, careful not to destroy the tofu's shape, cook for another minute and serve.
11. Garnish the finished Mapo tofu with the chopped scallion greens and remaining sichuan pepper.

Note: Mapo tofu is served hot! and with a nice side of steamed rice.
No salt was really necessary due to the salinity of the doubanjiang, and soy sauce.