Mapo tofu is one of the four major cuisines with Chinese characteristics and a classic dish in Sichuan cuisine. Its main ingredients are watercress, tofu, minced beef (pork can also be used), chili pepper and peppercorns. Mapo tofu is characterized by the eight characters of hemp, spicy, hot, fragrant, crisp, tender, fresh and alive, and its unique taste and smooth taste highlight the characteristics of Sichuan cuisine "spicy". It is a famous trademark of Sichuan, which was selected into the list of "intangible cultural heritage" in Chengdu, and in 2018, it was rated as one of the top ten classic dishes of "Chinese cuisine" in Sichuan.
We all know that the "hemp" in Sichuan cuisine is one of its major characteristics, so many people have preconceived notions that mapo tofu must be because of its spicy taste, because of the peppercorns in it, so it is called this name. Not really. The "mapo" in mapo tofu is actually the name of the founder of this dish. Books such as "Jincheng Bamboo Branch Words" and "Old Records of Furong Dialect" all record the history of Chen Ma Po's creation of Mapo tofu. "Jincheng Bamboo Branch Words" Yun: "Ma Po Chen Clan is still famous, tofu baked to taste the most refined, Wanfu Bridge side curtain shadow moving, Hegu Spring Drunken Mr." The Chengdu General Survey records that Chen Mapo tofu was listed as a famous food in Chengdu at the end of the Qing Dynasty.
About the origin of Mapo tofu, there is such a legend, according to the Qing Dynasty Tongzhi first year (1862), when in Chengdu's Wanfu Bridge dockside, there was a small restaurant called "Chen Xingsheng Restaurant", the hostess because of some numbness on her face, so people called her "Chen Ma Po". Because Chen Ma po is kind in heart and good in cooking, the workers and porters on the dock love to come to her restaurant to eat. One day, when it was almost closed, a group of coolies came in and asked the boss to cook some hot and affordable dishes. Chen Ma Po saw that it was late, and it was definitely not okay to go out to buy vegetables, so he was in a hurry, chopped up the only bit of beef left in the store, added tempeh, put it in the oil pot and fried it, added some soup, and then cut the only few pieces of tofu into two-centimeter square tofu blocks, put it into the soup pot and boiled it, and then added other spices, hooked the juice, and sprinkled a handful of pepper noodles on the tofu after the pot.
Just like this, a pot of delicious color, hemp, spicy, hot, fragrant, tender, fresh tofu is on the table. The gang had several bowls of rice, their noses sweating, and their mouths were full of pleasure. Those workers praised Chen Ma Po tofu for making delicious food, and the next meal was cheap, so it was passed on to ten, ten to a hundred, more and more people came to eat, and finally it became the signature dish of the Chen family, this tofu dish was also called "Chen Ma Po Tofu", and its small shop was later named "Chen Ma Po Tofu Shop".
Mapo tofu is popular and spread from place to place, and there are many different methods. The ingredients for early mapo tofu were vegetable oil and yellow beef. First fry the vegetable oil in the pot, then add a large handful of minced chili peppers, then add the beef, fry until it is dry and crispy, then add tempeh, finally add tofu, add a little water, cover the pot and dry the soup over low heat, and sprinkle the minced peppercorns before cooking. Now mapo tofu ingredients and procedures have changed somewhat, the taste emphasizes hemp, spicy, hot, salty, pork as the material of mapo tofu has also been widely accepted by chefs and diners around the world, and most of the oil uses peanut oil, while adding watercress sauce in it. After the meat is cooked, add watercress sauce, tempeh, red pepper powder, soy sauce, salt, sugar, stir-fry and then add tofu and broth, add green onion, ginger and garlic after boiling, and then add the juice, add peppercorn powder and sesame oil before cooking.
Nowadays, mapo tofu has jumped from a home-cooked side dish to a world-renowned international famous dish, we are familiar with its spicy and fragrant taste, as to whether it is "Chen Ma Po" hemp, or "spicy" hemp, for foodies, there is no difference, maybe a pun.