say it with pie

Two of my favourite Chinese foods are Mapo Tofu, a popular Szechuan dish, and dou miao, (”dough meow”) which is the leafy part of a snow pea plant. I have attempted to cook both of these dishes on multiple occasions but never got them right…until tonight!

For the Mapo Tofu, I required a few special ingredients. The most essential was dou ban jiang, a paste made from fermented chilis, broadbeans and soybeans, and an essential in Szechuan cooking. The other was douchi, or Chinese fermented black beans. One thing I could not find was Szechuan pepper, which provides a unique flavour and a numbing sensation. Let me know if you know where to find it. Oh, and I picked up a bottle of cooking-grade shaoxing rice wine.

I’m not even going to bother describing how I cooked it because you can find tons of helpful recipes and videos elsewhere.

Then just cook the dou miao like spinach, with minced garlic and soy sauce. Noms!