This is, quite simply, one of the most stunning tofu recipes I’ve ever eaten. No, forget that, it’s one of the most delicious dishes I’ve eaten in recent times, and that’s coming from a girl who’s been to possibly her two favourite London restaurants in the past month. It’s up there with ma po tofu and that’s got pork in it where this doesn’t. People, this is serious.

It’s intense, really intense. The foundation of the sauce is 12 sliced shallots; that’s a lot – a whole lot of shallot. There are 12 cloves of garlic, plus five whole tablespoons of crushed black pepper. It’s hot – really hot; I thought my face was going to fall off, and that’s even without the eight recommended chillies. I’d overlooked this part of the recipe and had just one lonely, shrivelled specimen lurking in the fridge. Feeling lazy I thought, sod it, I’ll just add some chilli flakes at the end if its not hot enough. I seriously cannot even imagine the raging inferno had I used even three or four. That pepper alone is something special.

It’s amazing though, and hugely addictive. The first key to its success is getting that sleek, healthy tofu, and giving it a damn good frying in hot oil until a golden crust forms all over. It’s then added back to the shallots, garlic and chilli, simmered with three kinds of soy sauce (light, dark and sweet) and garnished with spring onions. Bob’s your uncle.

This dish needs to be eaten fresh and hot; it’s the kind of thing you think will taste awesome cold for lunch the next day – it doesn’t. It’s a shadow of its former self; just a warning.

Recipe here. Go! Make it!

The idea of tofu used to make me shudder. The mere mention of the word and I would turn my nose up and scoff something about it being a tasteless meat substitute eaten only by extreme hippy types like Neil from The Young Ones.

That was until I discovered ‘proper’ Chinese food – Sichuan food in particular. Ma Po Tofu was where I turned the corner. Tofu doesn’t actually taste of anything; on its own it is purely a texture, which is why the strong flavours of Sichuan cookery suit it so well. In the ma po, wobbly cubes are cooked with pork or beef mince, funky fermented black beans and numbing Sichuan pepper. I let the tofu into my life from the moment I tasted it.

From there of course I wanted more and started thinking about the best way to get it. If there’s one thing a healthy food needs, it’s fat; frying seemed like the obvious answer. I wanted a crisp, spicy coating and at first tried to achieve it using panko crumbs left over from my mac ‘n cheese but they didn’t stick particularly well and the crust turned out patchy.

It was then I remembered reading somewhere that toasted ground rice would create the crunch I was looking for, with a nutty flavour to boot. A handful of uncooked basmati tinkled into a dry pan and toasted before I pounded and pounded and pounded it for a good 15 minutes before giving in and handing it to my boyfriend. Here’s the thing: making your own ground rice in a pestle and mortar is seriously hard graft. The next day I found a bag of it in Khan’s Bargain Ltd. in Peckham – 59p. You live and learn.

It did meet expectations though; mixed with equal amounts of coarse salt, ground pepper and dried chillies, the tofu cubes are transformed into super savoury bites with a rather erm, ‘meaty’ quality.

Of course, crispy tofu, as good as it may be, does not a complete meal make. I plonked it on top of steaming rice and served it with stir fried kow choi – an oniony/chivey tasting vegetable picked up on a whim in Brixton, mixed with minced pork (recurring theme?), cabbagey Sichuan preserved vegetable and chilli bean sauce. I basically cooked it with the flavours of dry fried beans. It is now ranking high amongst my favourite vegetables. I’m an allium whore.

Tofu is a blank canvas. This is something I always knew but never accepted. It can be an ingredient in the most mundane stir fry recipe from the back of a Cauldron packet, or it can be celebrated, injected with flavours, treated with a little respect. By this I mean you have to season it right and then also remember to show it a little love in the prep stage – you can read that below.

So now of course I want to know what you’ve got up your sleeve. What’s your favourite way to cook/eat tofu?

Crisp and Spicy Tofu

1 block of extra firm tofu
2 tbsp ground rice
2tbsp coarse sea salt
1.5 tbsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp ground dried chillies
Groundnut oil, for frying

Here’s the important ‘showing it some love bit’  – line a plate with a double layer of kitchen paper and then put the tofu on top before covering with another double layer and then resting a plate or two on top. Leave it for 15 minutes. The idea is to draw out a lot of the moisture. That’s it!

Mix all the coating ingredients together. Cut the tofu into cubes and toss them in the coating mixture. Heat a 1 cm depth of oil in a heavy based pan and fry the tofu pieces until golden brown and crisp on all sides. You could of course deep fry it, but that is a bridge too far for me, quite frankly.

Kow Choi with Minced Pork

Heat 1 tbsp ground nut oil in a pan and fry 2 cloves chopped garlic, a 1 inch piece grated ginger, 1 heaped tbsp Sichuan preserved vegetable (rinsed and chopped) and 5 whole red chillies (halve them if you want it hotter) for 1 minute until fragrant. Add 1/2-1tbsp chilli bean sauce and a generous pinch of sugar, stir briefly, then add 250g kow choi (cut into inch long sections). Stir fry until wilted. Season with salt. Add a few drops of sesame oil to serve.

I’ve been meaning to buy Fuchsia Dunlop’s books for years, friends rave about them and as someone who loves eating Sichuan food, I really should have got my act together a bit sooner. Even now, this copy of Sichuan Cookery is borrowed from a mate – an exchange for my beloved (and signed!) copy of Persia in Peckham by shop keeper extraordinaire, Sally Butcher.

I thought it best to start with some classics so I settled on twice cooked pork (hui guo rou) and ma po dou fu, otherwise known as ‘Pock-marked Mother Chen’s Beancurd, after the inventor of the dish – the wife of a Qing Dynasty restaurateur who was terribly scarred as a result of smallpox. I’ve taken a while to come around to tofu but now I’m a fully fledged fan and if you want to convert another hater, then this is the dish that might just do it. Tender tofu is coated in a luscious thick sauce, tingly with Sichuan peppercorns and meaty with crispy fried beef – surprisingly comforting for a beancurd dish.

As I was serving up tofu to the rather sceptical boyfriend, I thought I better include a meat dish to soften the blow somewhat, hence the twice cooked pork. The belly is first simmered before being fridged (to firm it up), then sliced into thin strips and stir fried with delicious flavourings such as chilli bean paste, fermented black beans and soy.

I simmered my pork for slightly too long and it went a touch dry but was still incredible after a good wokking, which crisped up all the lovely fat into heavenly caramelised strips and turned the flavourings into a sticky, sweet, umami packed sauce which clinged to the meat. I served both dishes with plenty of plain white rice and a spicy cucumber salad (qiang huang gua, top photo) for a spicy yet refreshing contrast.

The next night, fuelled by my success with the first attempts, I turned to my mate FD once again and this time felt drawn to the rabbit with peanuts in hot bean sauce (hua ren ban tu ding), what with all those big wild bunnies being ready for the eating right now, not to mention cheap. The meat is first simmered with aromatic ginger and spring onions then stripped off the bone and combined with crunchy roasted peanuts, spring onions and a typically intense sauce of mashed fermented black beans, chilli bean paste, soy, sesame and chilli oils.

For freshness I took inspiration from Fuchsia’s ‘fine green beans in ginger sauce’ and made a variation using sliced runner beans. The dish is cold and demands that the ginger be absolutely spanking fresh. The beans are simmered, refreshed and then coated in a tongue awakening sauce of Chinkiang vinegar, sesame oil, salt and a little stock.

We are lucky here in London as ingredients are easily available from Asian supermarkets and the one just down the road from me in Peckham is good; the only ingredient I haven’t been able to find is sweet wheaten paste so I followed Fuchsia’s suggestion for a substitution and bought sweet bean sauce instead. If you don’t have access to an Asian supermarket then I would suggest ordering online. As you can probably tell by now, I tend to go through obsessive little phases with my cooking and right now I’m plunging headlong into Sichuan. I can’t believe I’ve only just discovered the delights of fermented black beans (literally want to put them in everything), not to mention Tianjin preserved vegetable, the heady funk of which at first was a bit of shock but now has become plain addictive.

So, now I’ve got all these ingredients, I need to find new things to do with them. What are your favourite Sichuan dishes? I’d love to try them (FYI, I don’t have a hotpot – yet!). Are there any other authors on Sichuan food that I really should be checking out? I’d love to hear your recommendations.

Rabbit with Peanuts in Hot Bean Sauce (hua ren ban tu ding) from ‘Sichuan Cookery’ by Fuchsia Dunlop

(serves 2 for dinner or 4 as part of a larger meal)

40g piece unpeeled fresh ginger
2 whole spring onions
500g rabbit meat (Fuchsia describes this as half a rabbit but I needed a whole one)
4 spring onions, white parts only
75g deep-fried or roasted peanuts

For the sauce
1 tablespoon fermented black beans
3 tablespoons groundnut oil
2 1/2 tablespoons Sichuan chilli bean paste (I couldn’t find Sichuan so just used a different chilli bean paste)
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon white sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1-2 tablespoons chilli oil (optional)

As an optional first step Fuchsia instructs to blanch the rabbit in boiling water to get rid of any bloodiness. I didn’t bother.

Bring a large pan of water to the boil, lightly crush the ginger and spring onions with a heavy object. When boiling, add the rabbit, return to the boil and skim. Add the ginger and spring onions and simmer over a low heat until the meat is just cooked (this will vary depending on the size of your rabbit).

When cooked, allow to cool and take the meat off the bone. Mash the fermented black beans. Heat the groundnut oil in a wok over a medium flame until hot but not smoking. Add the chilli bean paste and mashed black beans and stir fry for 30 seconds until the oil is red and fragrant. Take care not to let the flavourings burn. Tip into a small bowl and combine with the soy sauce, sugar sesame oil and chilli oil, if using.

Chop the spring onion whites into 1cm sections. When ready to serve, combine the rabbit meat, spring onions and peanuts in a serving bowl. Add the sauce and toss to coat evenly. Serve.