Home-style ── Machi-chuka (Japanese-Chinese diner food)
Mabo Dofu
Mabo dofu — Japanese-style mapo tofu, milder and often made with pork instead of beef
Tofu and ground meat are simmered in a thickened sauce built on doubanjiang and sweet bean paste — said to have been reworked for Japan by a Sichuan-born chef, who eased off Sichuan's numbing peppercorn heat and, later, swapped beef for pork.
- Origin: Tokyo Minato
Lineage
What it's made of
Fat from the ground meat pools here and there across the red sauce. A spoonful brings the tofu's smoothness first, then doubanjiang's heat and the miso-like depth of sweet bean paste. The tongue-numbing heat of Sichuan peppercorn that marks the original is toned down, adjusted to a level easy to eat over rice.
How it's made
Tofu is cubed and parboiled; ground meat is fried with doubanjiang, garlic, and ginger, then seasoned with soy sauce or Hatcho miso. The tofu goes in to simmer, and a cornstarch slurry finishes the thickening. Where the original leans on Sichuan peppercorn, the Japanese version is said to lean on chili for heat, and pork rather than beef is now the common choice.
Why it took this shape
One account holds that a chef born in Sichuan, adapting to Japanese eating habits, swapped chili for Sichuan peppercorn and substituted some of the doubanjiang and sweet bean paste with Hatcho miso to soften the heat — the start of Japan's mabo dofu. A later cook in that lineage is said to have swapped beef for pork as well, and the dish is thought to have settled into a form of its own, apart from the original.
Before You Go
- Yokohama ChinatownSaid to be one of the largest Chinatowns in Japan, with more than 150 Chinese restaurants and food shops. Offerings range widely from street snacks to formal course meals.
- How to shop at a supermarketHow to choose prepared foods, sashimi, and packaged sushi, when discount stickers tend to appear, region-only specialties, buying by weight, the checkout and bagging flow, and sampling etiquette at a local supermarket.
- Foods to look for in summerA guide to foods often seen in Japan around summer — eel on the Day of the Ox, hiyashi chuka, somen, shaved ice, edamame with beer, and hamo — with rough pointers for finding them.
Dishes in the same style
- Annin-dofuA dessert descended from Chinese medicinal cooking that uses apricot kernels. In Japan it is often made with milk and almond essence, and the Hong Kong style of fruit and jelly floating in syrup took hold at Chinese restaurants and in school lunches.
- BambanjiSteamed chicken pulled into shreds and dressed with a sauce rich in ground sesame, served cold. It is based on a Sichuan dish, and in Japan a milder, sweeter sesame sauce with cucumber and other vegetables became the norm.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Tokyo
- Abura SobaNo broth is poured at all — noodles are tossed in a soy-and-sesame-oil tare pooled at the bottom of the bowl, said to have started at shops in the Musashino area in the late 1950s, with vinegar and chili oil stirred in partway through.
- Ajitsuke NoriSheet nori brushed with a soy-and-sugar seasoning and toasted crisp, said to have been devised as a gift for an imperial visit to Kyoto in the Meiji era. Its snap gives way to a burst of flavor and aroma.
- Anago ZushiConger eel, simmered sweet and savory, is laid over sushi rice and brushed with a reduced glaze called tsume — a staple Edomae topping from a fish that thrived in Tokyo Bay's nutrient-rich waters, its slick skin demanding a sushi chef's careful hand to clean.
- AnmitsuCubes of agar jelly topped with red peas, sweet bean paste, and dark syrup. Said to have begun when a Ginza sweets shop in the early Showa era added its own bean paste to the simpler "mitsumame" — jelly and peas in syrup — marking a point where wagashi met café culture.
- Asakusa shichimiA seven-spice chili blend from a shop tracing back to 1625 in Asakusa's old Yagenbori district, often described as the origin point of shichimi togarashi. The neighborhood's history as a hub for medicinal-herb wholesalers is credited with shaping a blend informed by traditional Chinese medicine, and the shop is known for custom-mixing blends to order.
- Bettara-zukeDaikon salted first, then pickled sweet in rice malt and sugar — said to descend from a lightly pickled daikon once sold at Edo's ebisu-kō market. The rice malt gives it a natural sweetness, and it still headlines Nihonbashi's autumn "Bettara Market."