hello hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re getting back into our series dedicated to foods from the wonderful restaurant scene here in the Bay Area with a shot at a really interesting mapo tofu found at Spices 3, in Oakland, CA. More specifically today, we’re going to be taking a shot at at their stinky mapo tofu, which is (as the name implies) a pretty typical Sichuan mapo tofu (or spicy ground pork and tofu stir fry), with the added twist that the tofu included is not your more typical soft tofu, but a Chinese fermented “chou doufu,” or more colloquially, “stinky tofu.” 

For those unfamiliar, chou doufu is is a Hong Kong street food classic featuring firm tofu that has been aged in a fermented bean curd, which gives it a uniquely pungent and “stinky” quality. More typically in Chinese cuisine, you might see this deep fried and served as a small plate with a light sauce on the side. For our version today however, we’ll be skipping that deep fry, and instead dropping our chou doufu straight into our wok fry for an interestingly complex quality to our tofu that you generally would not otherwise come across in a more standard mapo tofu. Finally to round this all out, it seemed appropriate to take a shot at our own chili oil today as well (since we are paying homage to Spices 3), so, we’ll be taking a look at how that stuff is made (and more importantly), if it’s worth the effort, since you can absolutely just buy that stuff in a jar. Hope you try it. 

It will be out on Friday November 26, 2021, so bookmark the recipe here, and be sure to subscribe and hit the bell on YouTube to get notified when it’s out!

Woo Can Cook is a series where we reproduce fun foods and recipes from my childhood. Some of them are authentically Chinese and/or pan-Asian, but a lot of them are odd Americanized versions that I inherited from my parents and grandparents while growing up in the Bay Area/California.

We're live streaming every Tues/Thurs at 6:30PM PST, with new recipes out every Friday!