I was about eleven years old when my parents looked at me startled and then gasped, clutched their hearts and made a phone call.
“She can’t speak a word of Chinese” they whispered to each other aghast. Back when we were babies to toddlers, each of us had one grandmother helping my mother. My grandmother, the one whose temper I inherited apparently, would speak to me in Chinese and my parents would speak to me in English. I think they figured it would keep it at a happy medium. I remember speaking a complete mish mash of the two languages with a sentence containing half English and half Chinese words and thinking “I hope they understand what I’m saying because it sounds a bit strange.”
Then each grandmother moved back to their countries and in their efforts to get my sister and I to assimilate into Australian culture they only spoke English to us. My parents spoke Chinese to each other (and only when they didn’t want us to hear what they were saying). And I lost the strange mish mash of the two languages that I spoke and turned from bilingual to monolingual. Post haste at eleven years old they signed my sister and I up for Chinese lessons. I remember going to the class and groaning when the teacher told us that Chinese was made up of thousands of characters and we would have to learn each character by heart. “And Lorraine, knowing 1, 2 and 3 are good but you’ll have to learn more.”
I gulped and put my head in my hands. Where was the 26 character alphabet? I was convinced my limit was 26 characters thankyouverymuch. Sadly I never quite got the grasp of speaking Chinese. To her discredit, she didn’t teach any of us wayward children Chinese – and this included my sister who was dux at school so she was as good a candidate as any. But I now really wish I had tried harder and given it a better go. Alas Mr NQN now speaks more than I do (although his is slang Cantonese that comes from being expatriated to Hong Kong for a few months for work). I do know some restaurant menu items although my pronunciation is woeful and there are so many inflections that I often get blank looks.
One of my favourite Chinese dishes is one that I’ve had a complete resurgence of love for recently – mapo tofu. I’ve had bad ones and I’ve had sublime ones. The most sublime being the one served at the Iron Chef dinners, the last one held in Melbourne. There Iron Chef Chinese Chen demonstrated his famous dish – it was the dish with which his father introduced Szechuan cuisine to Japan. Salivating and inhaling the spicy aroma we tried it and it was deep, rich, spicy and swoonworthy. Oh and spicy, after all it is Szechuan cuisine.
On each table at the dinner was a printout, in Japanese of the partial recipe. I couldn’t read it but then when I did a quick search to see whether anyone had translated it I found Iron Chef Chen’s Mapo tofu recipe all nice and translated! And from watching him demonstrate it, it looked very much like the recipe he had shown us. So I made it with my mother (who has now given up on me learning Chinese). A lot of the work is in the prep and once you had a spice paste and stock mixture prepped and the tofu parboiled in water, then it is literally 10 minutes or less in a hot wok. It is spicy and not for the faint hearted-we followed this recipe and it was the same heat as what we had at the Iron Chef dinner which is very hot indeed. If you want to cut out the chilli you could perhaps use less chilli oil and less dried chillis but part of the fun is huffing and puffing and then getting a soft morsel of pillowy tofu to soothe the palate.
So tell me Dear Reader, do you speak another language? And is there a language that you’d like to learn?
Iron Chef Chen’s Mapo Tofu
Adapted from food.com
Serves 2-3
- 500g/1 pound regular tofu (not silken)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 90g/3 ozs minced pork
- 1/2 cup green garlic chives, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
For spicy bean paste:
- 1 tablespoon Chinese chili bean sauce (or toubanjan or doubanjiang)
- 1 tablespoons Chinese ground bean sauce (tenmienjan, tenmenjan ir tenmenjiang)
- 2 teaspoons fermented black beans, chopped finely
- 1 dried chilli, chopped finely (or 1/2 – 1/2 teaspoon ichimi togarashi pepper) I used dried chilli
For stock mixture:
- 1 teaspoon chilli oil
- 3/4 cup chicken stock
- 1 tablespoon sake or 1 teaspoon dry sherry
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
To finish:
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1.5 tablespoons cornflour/cornstarch mixed with 1.5 tablespoons cold water
- 1 tablespoon szechuan pepper (optional)
- Boiled white rice to serve
Buyer’s tip: The Chinese chilli bean sauce, ground bean sauce and fermented black beans can be found at Asian grocery stores
The two sauces and the fermented black beans
1. Cut tofu into cubes-the recipes says 1 inch cubes which we did but I prefer slightly smaller ones. Heat a saucepan of water and add the salt and tofu pieces gently. Bring to the boil and then reduce heat to medium high for 8-10 minutes and then remove from heat and drain gently.
2. While the tofu is cooking, in a small bowl mix the chilli bean sauce, ground bean sauce, chopped fermented black beans and dried chilli and set aside. In a jug measure the stock, chilli oil, sake or sherry and soy sauce and set aside. Then in a small bowl, mix the cornstarch and water and set aside.
3. When the tofu is done, heat a wok on high and add the oil and swirl to coat the pan. Add the pork and brown, stirring carefully to separate. Then add the spicy bean paste above cooking for 1 minute.
4. Then add the stock mixture as well as the tofu pieces. Stir fry very gently for 1-2 minutes.
5. Take the wok off the heat and cool for a minute so that the sauce isn’t bubbling. Add the cornstarch and stir very gently. Drizzle with sesame oil and serve with Szechuan pepper if desired. But don’t forget the rice! It wouldn’t be the same without it 
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I can relate with what you’ve written and been through. I worry sometimes that my youngest will never speak Greek fluently like my older children (who are all adults now) because we all speak to her in English!!
She goes to Greek school every Saturday and can understand more than she can speak..
Your dish looks really scrummy!
Surely scrumptious! I love bean sauce.
Cheers,
Rosa
I wish I had all those ingredients sitting in my pantry! I am surprised with the pork/tofu ratio but I guess this dish is more about tofu and less about pork. Wish I know many more languages, esp Russian which I have been trying to learn for quite some time. Its amazing how I know so much more the more drinks I have:)
It’s actually not too difficult to make!
0_0
Always thought it was. But not sure whether my kitchen can take it. My house smell like masterstock the entire day yesterday!
I can speak three other languages apart from English: Mandarin, Bahasa Melayu (not Bahasa Indonesia) and Cantonese. I’m better at Cantonese than Mandarin.
I would love to master Korean and Mandarin. I would love to learn to write in Cantonese too!
I grew up in Thailand in a Thai speaking house hold. However, I have always been fascinated/obsessed with English language. My mom said since pre-school I was determined to speak exactly like they do in American movies, even started calling my parents Mommy and Daddy instead of the Thai words like everyone else. LOL
And now I’m learning Italian. Learning your third language on your second one has proven to be a LOT more difficult. Heh.
no saddly no languages here , although i have dabled in Italian and Indonesian but have failed at both
I love mapo tofu!! And yes, I speak a mixture of Chinese and English at home too, I call it ‘Chinglish’
And my dad cooks the best mapo tofu too, with real Szechuan peppercorns and real tofu from the Chinese supermarket =D and lots of chilli sauce (lao gan ma, have you ever had that?)
Awesome! Been on the lookout for a good mapo tofu recipe. Good reporting, NQN.
That looks super Lorraine. I have never heard of this dish before, but it looks very good. I am sadly not bilingual. I wish I could speak German, as my mother’s ancestors were German.
I speak a little Yum Cha, but that’s about the extent of my Cantonese.
And I loooove mapo tofu, but have never made it at home, so thank you for the recipe!
This look so yummy! Great work. xo style, she wrote
Who cares about speaking Chinese so long as you can eat it!!! Aaaah! Mapo tofu was one of the only tofu dishes I let myself eat when I was young. Love love love the pungent, spicy, meaty dish.
This looks so rich and appetising that I might be tempted to have a taste if it were to be put in front of me – even though I have a morbid fear of anything too spicy.
It really is a pity that you didn’t learn Chinese when you were young. I think it is difficult to learn a new language when you are older. I am slowly learning Italian. I would be much better if I actually studied, but I have always loathed studying anything. I can get by in Italy and can can have conversations with the locals. I’m not always completely correct,but they understand me.
I love tofu and this looks absolutely delicious. Cute story about the grandparents!
i LOVE mapo tofu!!!!
:D i used to always get my mum to make it when i’m not feeling to well, it always lifts me
Oh Lorraine! This is my most favourite dish of all time! All the chinese restaurants seem to call it Grandmother Bean Curd on their menus! We always order it, its actually how i introduced my kids to tofu! They love it too, and they also love the hot tofu dessert with the sugar syrup, i can never remember that ones name!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE !
I’ve always wondered about Iron Chef Chen’s mapo tofu seeing as the judges on Iron Chef always salivate over it. How lucky that you got to see the master at work.
As for languages, I’d love to learn French.
Thank you for the recipe, oh but does it look ever so gooooood. I grew up in a house that spoke Italian, Piemontese (a northern Italian dialect which is much like French), and Sicilian, thus I spoke a mish-mash “language” that got me nowhere during my first trip to Italy in 1970, living in Italy for a few years cured that linguistic confusion… Luckily life here in Berkeley, California has afforded me culinary insights into so many different “ethnic” cuisines, during July of this year I dined at Palestinian, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, South American and Japanese restaurants, all mom and pop establishments, all good, all very inexpensive… I refuse to frequent Italian restaurants because most of the time the cooks aren’t Italian, the food surely isn’t and the prices are too high. I’m always amazed how with Italian restaurants how they can get away with charging such high prices for very simple dishes while at the Chinese establishments it’s possible to enjoy rich complicated work-intensive meals for a quarter to third the price. Anyway if I want good Italian food I cook it myself… I have friends of different nationalities with whom I try to learn a phrase or two in their language; Chinese is difficult, the best I can do with it is gung hay fat choy and ee, er, sun (1, 2, 3), oh, and shey shey (thank you).
–Shey shey for the column and recipe!
This looks delicious but there’s no way I could handle the heat
I studied French all through high school & a little more recently at Tafe but i’ve never managed to get my head around it properly. I’m learning Indonesian now & that seems to be a lot simpler.
I also had a childhood of a mish mash of languages, we spoke German and Danish at home before I went to school, and then my parents tried teaching me english, but do you think I would have a bar of it – no way! But yes eventually I had to after about six months at school. Now I am only fluent in English.
One of my favourites too.
Your recipe looks easy enough for me to attempt. No more sauce mix for me!
SSG xxx
I would love to be bilingual – sadly I am so many generations Australian and before that English and Irish that there isn’t a speck of interesting culture to be found
I’ve never seen or heard of Mapo Tofu and so glad I found it here today because it looks great!!
I love mapo tofu too!
And have an “Iron Chef” Chilli Stomach, TRUE!
They say, “If you don’t use it, you lose it”, with languages, that’s me!
Hope on day learning Spanish will also be “as easy as can be”
WHOO HOO!
I’ve always wanted this recipe, but what I really want to know is if you flipped the whole wok of ingredients over the way Chen does on Iron CHef when he makes it?
I speak a handful of schoolgirl French, but would like to learn Thai, it’s my favourite cuisine, and I’d like to understand it a bit better.I figure if I can speak the language I have a better chance of asking the right questions at the market stalls and eateries.
Great recipe, must try this tonight, as this is my husband’s fave dish. He tried to cook it on Sunday, using packet mix that he bought …FAIL big time …lol. Bless him for trying!!
I speak Indonesian, Cantonese (with my family), Hokkien, can put a few sentences together in mandarin.
Been trying to teach my English speaking husband abit of Canto and Indo
Wow, that is HOT in more ways than one, lol! Would love to give this recipe a go as we all love Tofu in our household, even my carnivorous husband
I was lucky to have parents that spoke Italian at home and therefore can say I speak it fluently. Although, not ever having studied the intrinsic grammar of this beautiful, melodic language, I do err at times and mum has a good chuckle. Didn’t find it a problem when last travelled to Italy, the locals would ask me from which town I came from, thinking that I was a resident picking up on my dialect.
Studied and loved learning French at school. My girlfriend and I would come 1st and 2nd zigzagging each exam, so we were pretty good at it. Then in our early twenties on our first o/s holiday to Europe , when we began speaking French the locals ‘pretended’
they couldn’t understand us, much to our surprise, we overcame the problem by writing down what we were saying. Surely, our pronunciation wasn’t that bad! Back then the French were quite arrogant and non-conforming but since that episode I’ve found them to have mellowed . Would love to live in France for 6 months and pick up all that I’ve lost through not using the language anymore.
I had Mapo Tofu in Shanghai and it came in sort of a jellied sauce. Not sure if it was a regional variation or a “tourist’s version”. On the language front I am currently learning Italian for a holiday there in Sept. I can recommend Paul Noble’s language CD’s- he gets your head around the grammar fast. Thanks for the recipe- will try a lower chilli style for my partner.
—I was introduced to tofu last year! I loved it. I love the texture & consistancy, also.
But one really needs to know how to make it, don’t they? The proper spices etc..
L. will you make me some? Your dish looks deLISH
XX Kiss for you in Aussie land.
definitely tasty with plain rice… hmm i can see this as my potential lunch
Lorraine,
You can say you speak
Chinglish–Chinese
and English!
yes, in retrospect
we all wished for immersion
with chinese speaking
grandmas but in the 50s
our american born parents
wanted us to speak standard
english. we used to tell
the chinese school teacher
to say it in english and we
wrote the english next to
the chinese characters!
not to mention that there
are so many dialects- once
on a china trip i was so proud of myself for using
all the chinese i knew with the tour guide only
for him to insist that we speak english- as i was
speaking in cantonese-my
very best and he only
knew mandarin! bummer!
but i think people appreciate when you try—
joy gien–bye bye
Hehe, Hi five! I am personally a Chinglish speaker
I can speak conversational German, but I’m pretty rusty. Whenever I get back with my German relatives, which is all too rare, I pick it up quickly. When I travel I also make it a rule to speak a little of every language, so there’s a smattering of Thai, French, Italian, and Greek, plus plenty of cursing, which I am fluent in.
Dear Lorraine,
You have my permission to make this for me in the future. Spicy, tofu-as-king, not-for-faint-of-heart? I’ll be more than happy to sing/spy for my supper for this
P.S. I’ll bring the raw key lime pie dessert.
P.P.S. And I’ll blog it soon. Promise.
P.P.P.S. xo
This dish looks yummy! My Dad is French and that is his first language – he didn’t speak English til he went to school at 6. Then he was teased for being a ‘little French boy’ so refused to speak it. So, unfortunately, I have never been able to speak French. Tried my best to learn at school but (oh the shame) failed miserably. Dad’s now getting back into his French culture and loving speaking it when we go to French restaurants and when we went to France a few years back. But alas neither my brother nor I can manage a word. Such a missed opportunity – I hope to live in France later in life and learn through immersion.
That looks sooo yummy!!!! I can only speak english but I would love to be able to speak another language! I’m always really impressed when other people speak another language
I speak a little bit of Spanish but I’d love to speak more. My mum is fluent and I can understand a lot but my speaking skills are lacking.
Ha ha – so funny. My kids go to Saturday morning Chinese lessons and are making quite good progress (amazing considering I speak none and my husband speaks a little but we use only English at home). We are rewarding them with a trip to Hong Kong, China, Sing and Malaysia next week.
This mapo tofu looks fantastic.
Languages – fluent in Japanese, tried to learn Mandarin at uni but got it mixed up with Japanese. Also a bit of French.
But would love to be able to swear in Spanish – they really seem to have some juicy swear words and salacious turns of phrase.
Grandma’s Beancurd transcends the language barrier – all Chinese chefs seem to know how to cook it, and every chef seems to have a different take on it. I’ve ordered it from the same place, but what’s in it seems to depend on which chef is on that night, ie. sometimes it has scallions, or button mushrooms, green peas, or even water chestnuts mixed in.
I have found that you can order Grandma’s Beancurd at almost any Chinese takeaway or restaurant in Australia whether its on the menu or not.
However, I don’t recommend trying this in regional QLD, where I was told “Tofu, no we don’t get much call for that round here luv!”
Hi NQN,
I forgot to mention in my first post that I have also had Mapo Nasu – Grandma’s Eggplant which was also really fabulous.
Do you know if there is a chef or restaurant in Sydney or other part of Australia who is doing this? Its really scummy too.
oh yummo. Thanks Lorraine, I’ve been waiting for this recipe.
We speaks English & Indonesian, it’s funny. Sometimes we say mix words in sentences and laughed after it.
We can understand very little oh Chinese and that’s about it.
Hi Lorraine,i’ve been away abroad for awhile i’m reading through the posts I missed out on.
Happy Birthday (for May),sounds like you had a wonderful night I LMAO about the fishy sauce blind tasting!!
I’m very keen to investigate the Asian stores for the ingredients to make this Tofu ala Iron Chef!
I speak Greeklenglish-but i understand it perfectly but speech is a different story.
Would love to learn Japanese and French and Russian. I’m fascinated with the mysterious characters and symbols!And I adore the calligraphy script.
Russian – for the spy-ish ness of it and French….to go undercover in a french kitchen and listen in on all the tricks to the recipies!!
Ps can’t wait to your book release! All the best!
Amazing dish!!! Looks delicious Lorraine!
I am having the same problem with my kids… I do my best to speak Italian with them… they understand me, but only reply in English! I also take them to Italian classes on Saturdays… hopefully their Italian will improve while growing up.
I speak Italian, English, Spanish and French. Growing up in Europe has its advantages… we all learn different languages in school.
Woow, this food looks amazing.. I would love to try some!
Another very cute segue! I don’t speak any other languages, but would love to learn French, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. I have learned little bits of a few languages over the years. This dish looks amazing and another I am definitely going to have a crack at! Thanks for sharing, as always.
I love mapo tofu. I can speak Mandarin but after so many years here and not speaking or reading much of it… I am pretty much useless :\
This is something I must make,as I love tofu! And I happen to have a jar of bean sauce in my fridge
Bang a gong, we are on!
I looove mapo tofu – back in the days (actually not too long ago, even though it feels like ages ago!) I used to make it with a packet mix *cough*. Will definitely try out this recipe, seeing as I always have chilli bean sauce handy anyway!
My Mandarin was excellent when I was about 10. I looked through some of my Mandarin books last year when we moved, and I was like ‘oh my how on earth did I write all these random Chinese characters’? Have lost most of my grasp of Mandarin, can only do basic conversational Mandarin now.. :S
Ben just ate tofu last night!
This is one of my all time comfort foods! I’ve found that eggplant is a good substitute for the tofu for my sister who is allergic to the stuff!
That looks really delicious! I guess I am pretty lucky. Like you I grew up with a mish mash of languages, but being Malaysian, it was compulsory to learn two languages at the least. So I can speak 3
Mapo tofu is definitely one of my fave comfort foods and a fun dish to cook because it’s simple and delicious. Your interpretation looks delicious! Bagus, ho-sek and definitely yummy!
Once we were high school or college age, we all bewailed the fact that our parents never taught us Yiddish. They spoke it together and with their friends only when they didn’t want us to understand. A huge part of our culture was kept out of our reach when it would have been wonderful to have passed in down to us. My boys speak 3 languages fluently and we encourage them to learn more. And fabulous mapo tofu. Yum! I want to make this!
I love how gloriously rich and thick this flavorful sauce is, Lorraine! What a meal! Too funny about speaking Chinese…I’ve been trying (ahem, for about 5 years now) to learn Arabic for Mike. I’m sorry to say, my second language skills are a bit lacking, lol!
Hi Lorraine! I think there’s a mistake in the instructions in this part of number 1: “Heat a saucepan of water and and the salt and tofu pieces gently.”
I speak English, Malay, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien and French. Unfortunately, I can’t read Chinese characters, and just as you said, the idea of learning them is simply daunting!
I love Mapo Tofu–thanks for the recipe. I spoke more or less five languages at one time, but am now rusty in all but English and Spanish. The French is still there, asis Arabic–but just conversational. Italian is gone, except for the French and Spanish tie-ins. My son is trilingual though–perfectly so–and I think it is a great gift. Our world needs more of it!
Hi Lorraine,
Can you please tell me where you get fermented black beans in Sydney? Or are these home made? My sister and I love this dish and can’t wait to make it!
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! My local Chinese restaurant used to do a wicked “Ma Po Beancurd” and I couldn’t quite figure out what made it so yummy. I shall be trying this for dinner tomorrow!
I have a friend from Peru who is teaching me spanish
This looks amazing
i love that it has tofu as well as pork – great for meat eaters who are unsure of tofu. It eases them in gently 
the flavours sound delicious!
I daily pine over my childrens’ English. I speak to them in English, but my husband and I speak Italian and they go to Italian school and social interactions are in Italian…the result is they understand English, they answer me in Italian and my oldest has now sometimes started answering me in English (or reverts to it a little when we visit Emglish-speaking relatives) with an Italian accent. I grew up tri-lingual seemingly with no effort so this frsutrates me. I hope my kids will really start speaking one day…
P.S. two grandma’s to help out? wow!
Ha ha , i spoke a little mish mash too.
When i was little i spoke only portuguese ,which my family spoke , with a sprinkling of hindi which my dearest darling Nanny spoke , so imagine the 2 together , lol!
English came only at school later:-)
This looks so good i wanna make some right away (only that its almost midnight now , ok already is and i dont know what im dng awake when i have early gym class tomrw).
Delicious!
This looks delicious! I’m terrible at languages. I really cant say I’m fluent in anything else apart from English but I dabble in a few others
Oh dear – I am a latecomer to mapo tofu – love it dearly but my last encounter made me a bit suspicious that it wasn’t all vegetarian and now I am very more suspicious now that I have seen the pork in your recipe – will have to just try it myself – once I have made a trip to my favourite asian grocers – who by the way don’t speak much english if you need help
I love tofu, and this looks so delicious, but I think I’d be huffing on the floor with my whole mouth about to fall off with that heat
I learned Italian in high school for 4 years but was never good at it. I’d love to speak French!
*hangs head in shame* I have never eaten tofu before. But it’s only now becoming easier to find here in South Africa.
I speak English and Afrikaans fluently, can understand and get by with Dutch and can order beer and coffee in French, if that helps!
Thanks for sharing the recipe. Just made the Mapo Tofu tonight. Really nice (slightly salty-I think I will soak the black beans before chopping them up). Normally I just use the Chilli Bean Sauce. With the extra Ground bean sauce and black beans make the dish so much better.
I can only read and write in English. If I am back in Malaysia or Singapore, I can slowly pick up Mandarin. My Cantonese is gonski now. I think in English and then try to translate into Cantonese. There are lots of words I can’t translate into Cantonese. Have to say I am better at listening in Cantonese and Mandarin then speaking them.
One of my favorite dishes EVER — this looks so good and pretty easy too =)
Mapo Tofu is my favourite tofu dish! Interestingly, the first time I tried it (along with other Szechuan food) was when I moved to Zurich and discovered the best Chinese restaurant I had ever been to. I will have to try your recipe at home
I grew up in Australia and spoke Vietnamese at home, a fact which I am now very happy about although it wasn’t very cool when I was growing up, LOL! I’m now living in Switzerland so I have been learning German. And on top of that, I’m married to a Frenchman so I’m also learning French. No rest for the wicked 
We took Italian lessons for a whole year in a small group setting of six. Believe it or now, Lorraine, my southern husband got the Italian accent down fine. Then our Italian teacher moved and we now have Rosetta Stone. Only problem is there are no Italians to practice with here in Nashville. So I’m learning “southern.”
That is some tasty looking mapo tofu!
Your recipe looks wonderful. I love ma po tofu! What do you do with the green garlic chives??
I speak many languages, but I don’t think you’ve lost your culture because you dont speak the language. Try watching movies! Best way to learn accents, slang and how people talk in general! Plus much more fun than classes.
The mapo tofu looks delicious.
I’m an Australian born Chinese. My mum doesn’t speak English so I had to speak Chinese at home. I am grateful for this because I’m sure that like you I would have lost the ability to speak Chinese if I didn’t speak it at home often enough. My first language was the Chinese dialect Diojiu and then I learnt Cantonese from watching Hong Kong videos with my parents from a young age.
I can only speak Chinese and I do not know how to read or write any Chinese. I would like to learn how to read and write Chinese one day but it’s such a mammoth task that I avoid it.
Looking at this dish is making me hungry!!!
Thanks NQN,
I love mapo tofu and this recipe was divine. Not too hot I think, just the right amount of heat with a pleasant schezuan pepper tingle. I’ll definitely be making this again.
FBJ
Hi F&BJ! I’m so glad that you liked it and thanks for the feedback about the heat. I never know if I am making things too spicy or not!
Surfed across to your site and loved it. We are going to try the Ma Po tonight. BTW your writing style is excellent too.
Thanks for the recipe, I had my first taste of Mapo Tofu in Rabat, Morocco when stationed there earlier this year – but without the pork as I am vegetarian. Then had a few versions of it in Beijing a few weeks ago, can’t get enough of it! One point though – your recipe says the tofu shouldn’t be silken – every time I’ve had this it has been with silken tofu – I’m not a fan of it normally but liked it in this dish. Will definitely try your recipe (without the pork!!) thanks
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