Mapo Tofu (Crispy Duck Egg Style)

Ingredients

• Soft tofu (Recommended brand: Qingmei)
• Paring knife
• Salted duck egg (Recommended brand: Liufu Ya - this is the soul of the dish)
• Belly pork (Ground pork from the supermarket works too)
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Mini spicy peppers (Optional if you can't handle spicy food)
• Spicy sauce/Chili paste (Recommended brand: Guangle)
• Sichuan peppercorns
• Food salt
• Soy sauce (Flavor-enhancing soy sauce / Xiaojixian Soy Sauce)

Steps

1. Finely chop the garlic and ginger; set aside.
2. Slice the mini chili peppers into rings; set aside.
3. Chop the belly pork into ground meat (skip this step if you bought ground meat directly).
4. Add half of the salt and the soy sauce to the ground pork; stir well and set aside.
5. Use a knife to vertically split the salted duck egg in half (please be careful with safety), remove the yolk (you must remove it, otherwise there will be a fishy taste), and smash the remaining egg white into pieces about 2mm x 2mm in size; don't crush it too finely, set aside.
6. Open the tofu package. Use a fruit knife to cut the tofu in the box into pieces about 2.5cm x 3cm; set aside.
7. Heat the pan, pour in 10ml - 15ml of cooking oil. Wait 10 seconds for the oil temperature to rise.
8. Turn the heat down to low. Add garlic, ginger, chili rings, peppercorns, salted duck egg, and spicy sauce; stir-fry for 20 seconds to release the fragrance.
9. Turn the heat to medium. Add the ground pork; stir-fry for about 1 minute until the meat changes color.
10. Turn the heat down to low. Add the tofu; evenly sprinkle the remaining salt and soy sauce over the tofu.
11. Pour boiling water from the side of the pan (otherwise the tofu is prone to breaking); the water level just needs to cover the tofu.
12. Turn the heat to high. Once the water boils, immediately switch to medium heat and wait for about 10 minutes.
13. Once the water has reduced to 1/5 and the surface of the tofu has taken on color, turn off the heat and serve.