Weeknight Asian Comfort

Although Mapo is a dish born in the Chinese Sichuan style—with spicy-numbing heat as a main flavor—enjoy this milder, family-friendly version. For most of us healthy cooks, it’s a strange bedfellow to have pork marry to tofu; change it out with soaked and minced dried shiitake mushrooms. There is a meat-believe mushroom alternate recipe at the bottom.

INGREDIENTS: Serves 4-5

• oil – 1 TBS, neutral
• ginger – 1 TBS, minced
• garlic – 1 TBS, minced
• chili flakes* – 1/2 tsp or more, [to taste]
• fermented black beans* – [optional], 1 TBS
• pork – 1/2 LB, ground, or 2 cups mushrooms, chopped
• soy sauce – 2 TBS
• oyster sauce – 1 TBS
• Chinese black vinegar – 2 tsp
• water – 1/2 cup
• tofu – 1 LB, [1 tub], 1/2″ cubes, soft or silken [if available]
• salt – season at the end, to taste
• scallions – 1/2 cup, green portion, thinly sliced
• cilantro – 1/2 cup, chopped

• rice or noodles as under dish

* Chili flakes – Locate these items in an Asian market. Choose any number of chili varieties. The traditional recipe calls for chili bean paste, which is quite spicy. Fermented black beans are dried spice, and lend a funky flavor [I like], but is not necessary.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Prepare the ingredients and have at the ready
2. In a wok or a large skillet heat the oil and lightly sauté the garlic, ginger, chili flakes, and fermented black beans [if using]—30 seconds
3. Add the pork and break up into crumbles until most of the pink color is cooked out
4. Add in a 1/2 cup water, soy sauce, vinegar, and tofu, then simmer to heat through
5. Taste the sauce and adjust for spiciness and salt
6. Top with sliced scallion greens and cilantro

Mapo Tofu is a Great Base Dish for a Rice Bowl or Serve Over Rice

Pasta Bowl: Served on Fettuccini and a side of Tuscan Kale

Build-Upon Recipe: To make a dish more veggie-centric I separately I sautéed onion, fennel bulb, and added to the wok along with shelled edamames at Step 4.

MEAT-BELIEVE MUSHROOM VARIATION: Fermenting mushrooms into spicy sausage makes for a great substitute. This is what I coined as “recipe multiplicity” one recipe-many ways.

Replace the pork with any of the ground meat-believe mushroom ferments you have on hand. Skip Step 3, just add at the end of step 4.

© 2025 Meat-Believe, Bill Hettig Recipe adapted, original by Mark Bittman, NYTimes