Hey guys, a few notes, and an important correction re soybean cooking time: 1. You will likely need longer than one hour to cook your soybeans until soft - probably at least three hours. We found that the soybeans in Thailand were older than the ones we would get in China, and needed longer to cook. We assumed that the situation in the West would be closer to our experience in China, but after poking around it seems that the western standard is something like 3-6 hours. Apologies. 2. If you’re short on time, you can use the following trick: first, drain out that 1.5 cups of soybean cooking liquid that we’ll want to use for the meat sauce later. Add additional water to the soybeans if needed. Then, add in ¼ tsp of either Kansui lye water -or- sodium carbonate. Bring to a rapid boil and boil it for 10-15 minutes - this should significantly soften the beans. This process will give the beans a slight greyish hue - slightly unattractive, but not really an issue in this particular dish. 3. Definitely check out Xiajie’s meat sauce recipe too: ruclips.net/video/d3oAqJdlLc8/видео.html Xiajie’s obviously pretty big - and has English subs! - so I’m the algorithm’s brought most of you to her already… but she’s one of our absolute favorites in the ‘village cooking’ genre. 4. I do want to reiterate that we *like* those ‘creative mapo tofu’ applications from the introduction - sometimes I feel like people can read a little bit too much into ‘critiques’. In particular, Matt’s (the Dumpling King) Mapo Tofu chili dog was one of the primary inspirations for this video. But all of that stuff - Andrea’s nachos, Mandy’s tofummus, Alex Blood’s mapo meat pie, Haikan’s mapo poutine - I want them all. We just feel that if mapo tofu can have so many applications, a mala roujiang would be even *more* versatile! 5. As an aside, I just learned about the existence of Mabo Tofu Ramen from researching this video, and was very happy to find a Japanese place in Bangkok that served it. It’s… awesome. It aggressively breaks the shape rule in a way that feels like it might not work, but totally does. 6. Oh, for the chili powders in the mala roujiang… definitely feel free to adjust the heat level to your tastes. I feel like the dish should be ‘obviously spicy’, but not uncomfortably so. If 2 tbsp of cayenne seems a little intimidating to your tastes, try using 3 tbsp gochugaru/Kashmiri and 1 tbsp cayenne… or even just all gochugaru/Kashmiri - you can always add more cayenne to taste later. And for those China-based, you can use Shaanxi chili powder for the ‘not spicy’ chili powder (i.e. in place of Gochugaru or Kashmiri). 7. If you accidentally made your sauce too spicy, balance it with more MSG, sugar, and Sichuan peppercorn powder. 8. For the curious, that bar that we were at in the outro is called "Fatty's Bar & Restaurant" - big thank you to them for letting us film there/get creative with their hot dog. If you're Bangkok-based and haven't heard of them, definitely check them out: goo.gl/maps/kKCw2Kvmy963vkyV9 . And while we're at it, two other Bangkok bar recommendations for those in the market: (1) United People's Brewery, goo.gl/maps/9Fy9jjerHs27RYov8 and (2) Yod Bar, g.page/YodBarBangkok?share . Fatty's is a fun place but it's definitely more of an expat haunch (so probably more relevant to people living in Bangkok than people traveling here) - United People's Brewery and Yod Bar are two of the focal points of Bangkok's nascent craft beer scene. 9. Something that we absolutely should have talked about in the video, and I'm now kicking myself for - Zhajiang (of Zhajiangmian/Jajangmyeon fame) *absolutely* also belongs to the same category of meat sauces. So besides the Fujian Pork & Mushroom, Zhajiang another roujiang 'standardized to dishhood' - and is definitely the most famous of the sort.
That’s all for now. Might edit this a bit more later with more notes.
I use XO sauce in this way - a kind of fancier version (given the cost of the ingredients 😳) but delicious on noodles and various western mash-ups eg as a burger sauce, on green beans, etc. Definitely intrigued by your Mala concoction!
I cook basically all types of beans in a pressure cooker - significantly reduces cooking time and energy wastage. Had great results with soy beans too. Cook on heat for maybe 20 minutes, wait until it cools down, done.
You guys might be the biggest resource for English Language Chinese cooking at this point. So if there is no accepted translation for an ingredient you could put one forward. Also have you considered creating a master list of all Chinese ingredients and sauces and their translations, identifications and substitutions because I think you're the most at liberty to do so.
Haha I feel it'd be be pretty arrogant to embark on that project ourselves... but I wonder if we could wrangle up some of the bigger names in the space (Woks of Life, SoupedUp, Made with Lau, etc etc) and together sort of formulate some standardized names? Might be cool to work on, but I'm also... a little lazy :)
At first blush, some standardization of ingredient translations does sound cool. As I think about it, though, I realize that my main challenge with ingredients isn’t when reading Steph/Chris’ recipes - it’s while I’m in my local Chinese market, trying to identify the many bean sauces in front of me. In that situation, I find it much more reliable to reference the Chinese characters for the ingredient that Steph and Chris usually include in their recipes. Anyone who’s having trouble identifying an ingredient, I’d recommend they try and get comfortable with reading the alphabet of the package’s original labeling.
I have noticed the pan-asian cooking (the asian continent) is really unique to the region you are cooking the food from based on historical trade, climate and geography. As an Easterner (South Asian) with a mixed upbringing of both East and West, Westerners do like to classify and categorize everything. It’s not an insult, a mere observation 👀✌🏽
Proper taucheo / yellow bean sauce (wow it sounds weird saying this in English) is pretty much impossible to find outside of parts of China and Southeast Asia, but a really good sub for it is red miso, the more fermented the better. None of my fellow overseas Southeast Asians can tell the difference when I use red miso instead!
I found something in an asian store here (not Asia): It looked like a mix between soybean paste and the soybean sauce shown in the video, in terms of liquid-ness. It's the same brand ("Healthy Boy") but it's in a glass jar, not a bottle (just google "healthy boy soybean" and you'll find it). Do you know if you can also use that one too (and just add a little bit of e.g. water)?
So I'm from Cincinnati. When Greek immigrants came over and settled in our city, they brought over this meat sauce that was eventually dubbed "chili" (even though it is not). This reminds me of it, and I like the cultural convergence.
@@abydosianchulac2 yeah it's more of a pasta sauce that ignorant Americans decided to call chili. It's Mediterranean inspired and has cinnamon and other spices. Some recipes even call for dark chocolate. Not necessarily the most chili like thing lol.
@@abydosianchulac2 the "traditional" way is spaghetti, the Cincinnati "chili," and shredded cheddar cheese. You can also add diced onion, hot sauce, and other fun stuff. People also put them on hot dogs. Never tried it with gnocchi but I'm sure it's delicious.
When I was on exchange in late 2017, my favourite thing to eat at the cafeteria at Tsinghua University was a thing called Roujian ban-mian. it was a whole ordeal to figure out how to order it from a cafeteria stall that had several other lesser noodles, and whenever I ordered it successfully it was a massive treat. When I came home, I was still obsessed but I couldn't find a recipe anywhere (I think I actually found this channel looking for it). I assumed from the name ( and as Chris and Steph confirmed here) that the reason I couldn't find the recipe was because a dish called something as obvious as "meat-sauce mixed-noodle" was about as likely to have a fixed recipe as it sounds. That being said, without the intuition of a Aiyi, I knew I couldn't puzzle this one out on my own. I'm so excited that after five years, I can put my search to rest and finally get back to eating god's-own breakfast noodle. Thank you for doing the lord's work Chris and Steph!
Something my family has made for ages is a jidanjiang, like chinese miso paste (not sure what to call it in english) and egg curd sauce that we serve atop vegetables or noodles. I would love to see an exploration of that from yall since I don't actually know anything about the history or if there are other regional variations.
Me too! My grandma and my mom used to make that when we didn’t have anything else at home and it’s so simple and quick and tasty. I love eating the sauce with congee or noodle.
Love your channel! And the recipes of course! And your 'tauco' pronounciation is pretty good too 👍 Just want to kindly clarify that 'bahasa' literally means 'language' if you translate it to English. So it is more accurate (and makes me, this particular Indonesian, happy 😊) if you say 'bahasa Indonesia' instead. I know it's much longer but there you go 😁
As a someone from a family who have no chefs in the family tree and don't care about subtle flavors, our meat sauce for topping noodles is just ground pork and half a packet of store-bought ... some sort of sauce. My personal favorite is a product called 香其酱, but generic 豆瓣酱 or northeastern 大酱 are also something my family or extended family sometimes use. Other than the packet of sauce, we don't really add anything else to the wok (no sugar no soy no five spice or whatever). Eggs instead of meat is also sometimes what my family cook up, if we happened to not have ground meat or when they feel like going a healthier route.
So glad I stumbled on this the same day I got ground pork in my CSA box. Far more exciting than my typical family polpetti recipe, and from the best English language resource for Chinese Christine I’ve found outside of Dunlop’s books! You’re both invaluable educators and wonderfully practical resource!!
Thank you! this is exactly how i feel about ma po fusion foods. I wanted to add that in Ma po tofu, the tofu itself is playing the role that a starch based ingredient normally does (to absorb flavor and dilute saltiness) so the tofu seems almost redundant in a lot of these ma po fusion foods.
you have to try Mandy Lee's mapo to-fummus, seriously. she's an amazing cook. and the to-fummus (or whatever we want to call it) is cooling and complements the dish perfectly. her recipes are fussy, for sure, but she gets it right. her mochi bread (milk bread with a rice tangzhong) is amazing, too, and I'm generally NOT a fussy cook. sometimes, though, it's worth it. that said, I'm happy to see a roujiang recipe, even as someone who rarely eats meat! I do eat it sometimes, though, and when I don't, Impossible burger would work great for something like this. thank you, as always, Chris and Steph!
The comment sections is always filled with people's wonderful insights to possible substituted and various life experience with the dishes. Makes it feel like one big happy family
One of those pantry/fridge ready flavor mixes that I will definitely add to my collection :) Honestly our fridge is filled with prepped flavors and stocks that cooking something on a weeknight is fast and delicious!
Mapo tofu is a masterpiece. The delicacy of the tofu is the star. Why would you do that? So glad we have this meat sauce to try. Love this channel so much 💛
this channel is incredible. thanks so much you two for sharing all of this. its been so much fun bonding with my mom over cooking these dishes. whenever i visit her, we try something new or keep it lazy and cook something familiar.
New to the channel and had to make this--I made the beef sauce and it's amazing! I used a small frying pan to fry the spices (tipping it up a bit so the oil pooled to one side), then moved over to a 12" frying pan for the rest of it, and followed the instructions to a T. Definitely going to make this again and the only thing I'm going to adjust is cranking up the hot peppers, I love fire. Looking forward to trying more of your recipes!
I learned so much watching this one video! Thank you for your work, and 祝你有幸福的一天. 💖 (Excuse me if the Chinese is wrong. I used a translator but wanted to wish your team a blessed day.)
I imagined how you got permission to shoot in the hotdog shop. "Ermm... can we come in with a bowl of meat sauce to slather on your hot dogs?... We definitely are not recipe testing for a competing Chinese flavored chili dog"
Living in the countryside of northern Japan, I found mapo ramen and mapo tenshinhan, both of which were amazing and would leave you in a food coma for hours.
I’d never heard of mapo tofu before this actually.. I was vegan for 3 years and developed an affinity for tofu but I love mixing it was meats these days. I know what’s on my meal planning next week now 🎃
I watched this thinking at first it was going to be more similar to an Italian American meat sauce. But then by the mala version I was like...this is more akin to chili. The chili dog idea at the end has me wanting to try this out.
That rain... But a question: if I made a couple of jam jars of roujiang, how long would they keep in the fridge? This looks like it's going to be eaten in small scoops with other stuff!
So from what people say online, 1-2 months... BUT with the large quantities of garlic/aromatics and such I personally don't try to keep it *too* long. It also freezes very well, so we've been putting it in little ~2 portion baggies, tossing in the freezer, and simply grabbing some when we want it. And yeah, rainy season in Bangkok's... a thing, lol. We're actually reasonably lucky with our setup at our new place - if we were in an apartment, I dunno if we could film on a balcony with rain that heavy.
you could freeze it in ice cube trays and store in freezer bags. Ive done this before with homemade spaghetti sauce. Come to think of it, this is basically china's take on spaghetti sauce!
Everyone is talking about using this meat sauce in different dishes. For me it looks a bit like the seasoned meat I use in Dan Dan Noodles. Pork, seasoning, sechwan peppercorn, bean paste, green onion. If I make this I will try it as a slightly more complex meat sauce for Dan Dan. Also thank you for clearly showing the yellow bean sauce. I know I can find it in one of the 2 Chinatown shopping districts nearby, but some of those stores care hundreds of different jars of sauces so seeing it will help immensely when trying to look at a couple hundred jars on the shelf.
i mean its basically chili, a flavorful spiced meat sauce thats borderline a meal, thats chili. it even has beans in it for one of the recipes. It reminds me of skyline chili in some small ways. Im almost tempted to try and make this for a chili competition to see if in the US itd be accepted
As an Indonesian, I'd like to confirm that your pronunciation of the word "tauco" is correct. However, we usually natively spell the /tʃ/ sound as (c) proper, with no addition of "h" ("ch" is usually only for loanwords). Also, nice video!
Omg...the word choice of "Mala Beef Slop" 🤣 I zoned out a bit during the explanation of the recipe but was startled with laughter as I heard "mala beef slop...done"
We have followed you since 2018 and love all the dishes. We wanted to show family the dry pot recipe but we couldn’t find it anywhere!? Was that video taken off? The seasoned spice mix made that dish!
You knew I needed this in my life before I did. This is added to my list of things I want to try. And it also reminded me of my resolution to cook more mapo tofu. XD
May I say, kudos on using soy beans on the custom sauce, because that makes it quite mapo-tofu-ish in its own right. Technically, you're getting a more focused soy bean flavour, and filling out the sauce without superfluous bean curd chunks. Mapo Soy Beans instead of Mapo Tofu.
Can make a video with the szezwhan spicy peanut chicken, My wife and i would love the recipe i used to get it for my birthday everyyear here in canada. Then the restaurant changed places and now its a lunch only fastfood place
Will definitely give both of these recipes a go, and since lots of Chinese cooking typically combines pork with shrimp, I have a mindset to try the first recipe with shrimp instead of pork (for someone with a weird diet). As for the second recipe, minus the black beans (like you did...Freudian Slip? XD), it's similar to an American/Mexican chili recipe; we may not fry chili in a wok, and our recipes are all over the place, but for the most part, it's a very similar recipe.
I tried this after watching the video a few month ago. We loved it and it's now part of our standarts. Came back to the video because I keep forgetting the name.. We just called it Chinese Bolognese 😬
Kind of bummed out that you didn't mention the Beijing fried sauce(Zha Jiang). It has been a constant favorite choice amount all the meat sauces to me. Although it almost only goes with noodles (炸酱面), you just can't resist the aggressive fragrance of a bowl of fresh-out-of-wok Zha Jiang.
It looks awesome. However, my experience eating it is it is too greasy and on the sweet side. Not a fan of overly oily dishes. Every culture eat some form of meaty sauce as we all eat the same thing but cook it based on taste preferences. I am canning fruit preserves and along with meat sauces. I think I will add some dry mushrooms and yellow bean sauce to my recipe for a fusion addition. Thanks for the recommendation. Love your videos 🎉
Is a wok absolutely needed? I have an electric hob. 4 halogen rings and a twice more powerful induction ring. But all these need flat bottom pans. Can heavy duty pot say a big Dutch oven. Or a tall walled cast iron pan. Be used for this. I did have a glass lid from another pan. That fits my big cast iron pan. And obviously the Dutch oven has its own lid. This is oval shaped and can sit across the induction hob and 1 of the halogen rings. So a hotter and colder zone are possible. Induction ring can get to the smoke point of almost all oils. Canola, peanut, sunflower etc. Down size that sets of smoke alarm. But I have done indoor barbecues this way if it's raining outside. Rather that using either my portable gas barbecue or built in charcoal barbecue. BTW the charcoal one can reach high enough heat, that with my pizza stone or especially my pizza steel I can do high temperature pizzas. Also can burn aromatic woods in a special smoke can to do smoking of meats etc. Obviously restricting air inlets to lower the temperature and promote a long burn.
Or do I invest in a flat bottom wok. Seen some of them online. Flat bottom, curved inside side to side , encapsulated copper interior between steel or iron base, and steel or cast iron interior.
I've done exactly that using a sauce built up from mapo tofu w/o the tofu or meat. Used shitake water as a base, added some chinkiang vinager & sweetened it a tad. ran through the blender & strained. I use it as a dip for mo mo (Tibetan steamed beef dumplings).
Couldn't help but notice the ubiquitous craft beer coasters/logos on the wall behind steph. Did you place them there? Will there ever be a video about chinese beer culture? Is there much to talk about? How is the situation in thailand?
Wish you could hand me all that food over through the screen right now... I can't afford all these custom ingredients from the import stores.. but it all looks so delicious.. but I guess my daily pizza is okay. T.T Some day I'll make this for my bf and I
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Hey guys, a few notes, and an important correction re soybean cooking time:
1. You will likely need longer than one hour to cook your soybeans until soft - probably at least three hours. We found that the soybeans in Thailand were older than the ones we would get in China, and needed longer to cook. We assumed that the situation in the West would be closer to our experience in China, but after poking around it seems that the western standard is something like 3-6 hours. Apologies.
2. If you’re short on time, you can use the following trick: first, drain out that 1.5 cups of soybean cooking liquid that we’ll want to use for the meat sauce later. Add additional water to the soybeans if needed. Then, add in ¼ tsp of either Kansui lye water -or- sodium carbonate. Bring to a rapid boil and boil it for 10-15 minutes - this should significantly soften the beans. This process will give the beans a slight greyish hue - slightly unattractive, but not really an issue in this particular dish.
3. Definitely check out Xiajie’s meat sauce recipe too: ruclips.net/video/d3oAqJdlLc8/видео.html Xiajie’s obviously pretty big - and has English subs! - so I’m the algorithm’s brought most of you to her already… but she’s one of our absolute favorites in the ‘village cooking’ genre.
4. I do want to reiterate that we *like* those ‘creative mapo tofu’ applications from the introduction - sometimes I feel like people can read a little bit too much into ‘critiques’. In particular, Matt’s (the Dumpling King) Mapo Tofu chili dog was one of the primary inspirations for this video. But all of that stuff - Andrea’s nachos, Mandy’s tofummus, Alex Blood’s mapo meat pie, Haikan’s mapo poutine - I want them all. We just feel that if mapo tofu can have so many applications, a mala roujiang would be even *more* versatile!
5. As an aside, I just learned about the existence of Mabo Tofu Ramen from researching this video, and was very happy to find a Japanese place in Bangkok that served it. It’s… awesome. It aggressively breaks the shape rule in a way that feels like it might not work, but totally does.
6. Oh, for the chili powders in the mala roujiang… definitely feel free to adjust the heat level to your tastes. I feel like the dish should be ‘obviously spicy’, but not uncomfortably so. If 2 tbsp of cayenne seems a little intimidating to your tastes, try using 3 tbsp gochugaru/Kashmiri and 1 tbsp cayenne… or even just all gochugaru/Kashmiri - you can always add more cayenne to taste later. And for those China-based, you can use Shaanxi chili powder for the ‘not spicy’ chili powder (i.e. in place of Gochugaru or Kashmiri).
7. If you accidentally made your sauce too spicy, balance it with more MSG, sugar, and Sichuan peppercorn powder.
8. For the curious, that bar that we were at in the outro is called "Fatty's Bar & Restaurant" - big thank you to them for letting us film there/get creative with their hot dog. If you're Bangkok-based and haven't heard of them, definitely check them out: goo.gl/maps/kKCw2Kvmy963vkyV9 . And while we're at it, two other Bangkok bar recommendations for those in the market: (1) United People's Brewery, goo.gl/maps/9Fy9jjerHs27RYov8 and (2) Yod Bar, g.page/YodBarBangkok?share . Fatty's is a fun place but it's definitely more of an expat haunch (so probably more relevant to people living in Bangkok than people traveling here) - United People's Brewery and Yod Bar are two of the focal points of Bangkok's nascent craft beer scene.
9. Something that we absolutely should have talked about in the video, and I'm now kicking myself for - Zhajiang (of Zhajiangmian/Jajangmyeon fame) *absolutely* also belongs to the same category of meat sauces. So besides the Fujian Pork & Mushroom, Zhajiang another roujiang 'standardized to dishhood' - and is definitely the most famous of the sort.
That’s all for now. Might edit this a bit more later with more notes.
Yummmm... so, it's like a Chinese Bolognese sauce 🤠😋
I use XO sauce in this way - a kind of fancier version (given the cost of the ingredients 😳) but delicious on noodles and various western mash-ups eg as a burger sauce, on green beans, etc. Definitely intrigued by your Mala concoction!
I cook basically all types of beans in a pressure cooker - significantly reduces cooking time and energy wastage. Had great results with soy beans too. Cook on heat for maybe 20 minutes, wait until it cools down, done.
Hey! I'm Bangkok-based, would love to know where you went for Mabo tofu ramen! Sounds delicious
I really want a video on the shape rule. It would satisfy my brain. I want to know about all the exceptions.
You guys might be the biggest resource for English Language Chinese cooking at this point. So if there is no accepted translation for an ingredient you could put one forward. Also have you considered creating a master list of all Chinese ingredients and sauces and their translations, identifications and substitutions because I think you're the most at liberty to do so.
Haha I feel it'd be be pretty arrogant to embark on that project ourselves... but I wonder if we could wrangle up some of the bigger names in the space (Woks of Life, SoupedUp, Made with Lau, etc etc) and together sort of formulate some standardized names?
Might be cool to work on, but I'm also... a little lazy :)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Cue the XKCD comic n.927
@@Grilnid Yes. Let's never attempt to standardize anything.
At first blush, some standardization of ingredient translations does sound cool. As I think about it, though, I realize that my main challenge with ingredients isn’t when reading Steph/Chris’ recipes - it’s while I’m in my local Chinese market, trying to identify the many bean sauces in front of me. In that situation, I find it much more reliable to reference the Chinese characters for the ingredient that Steph and Chris usually include in their recipes. Anyone who’s having trouble identifying an ingredient, I’d recommend they try and get comfortable with reading the alphabet of the package’s original labeling.
I have noticed the pan-asian cooking (the asian continent) is really unique to the region you are cooking the food from based on historical trade, climate and geography. As an Easterner (South Asian) with a mixed upbringing of both East and West, Westerners do like to classify and categorize everything. It’s not an insult, a mere observation 👀✌🏽
Proper taucheo / yellow bean sauce (wow it sounds weird saying this in English) is pretty much impossible to find outside of parts of China and Southeast Asia, but a really good sub for it is red miso, the more fermented the better. None of my fellow overseas Southeast Asians can tell the difference when I use red miso instead!
Thank you so much for that tip!
They sell it in most chinese grocery stores I have been to.
I second this as a SEAsian
I found something in an asian store here (not Asia): It looked like a mix between soybean paste and the soybean sauce shown in the video, in terms of liquid-ness. It's the same brand ("Healthy Boy") but it's in a glass jar, not a bottle (just google "healthy boy soybean" and you'll find it). Do you know if you can also use that one too (and just add a little bit of e.g. water)?
Good tip!
So I'm from Cincinnati. When Greek immigrants came over and settled in our city, they brought over this meat sauce that was eventually dubbed "chili" (even though it is not). This reminds me of it, and I like the cultural convergence.
Oh, is _that_ why this chili everyone raved about had the consistency of water and I didn't understand it? This totally makes sense now.
@@abydosianchulac2 yeah it's more of a pasta sauce that ignorant Americans decided to call chili. It's Mediterranean inspired and has cinnamon and other spices. Some recipes even call for dark chocolate. Not necessarily the most chili like thing lol.
@@purple-flowers Now I'm craving a dish of gnocchi slathered with the stuff...
@@abydosianchulac2 the "traditional" way is spaghetti, the Cincinnati "chili," and shredded cheddar cheese. You can also add diced onion, hot sauce, and other fun stuff. People also put them on hot dogs. Never tried it with gnocchi but I'm sure it's delicious.
Yes!! I had the same thought. I'm sure you could serve either of these up exactly how you'd serve up chili
When I was on exchange in late 2017, my favourite thing to eat at the cafeteria at Tsinghua University was a thing called Roujian ban-mian. it was a whole ordeal to figure out how to order it from a cafeteria stall that had several other lesser noodles, and whenever I ordered it successfully it was a massive treat. When I came home, I was still obsessed but I couldn't find a recipe anywhere (I think I actually found this channel looking for it). I assumed from the name ( and as Chris and Steph confirmed here) that the reason I couldn't find the recipe was because a dish called something as obvious as "meat-sauce mixed-noodle" was about as likely to have a fixed recipe as it sounds. That being said, without the intuition of a Aiyi, I knew I couldn't puzzle this one out on my own. I'm so excited that after five years, I can put my search to rest and finally get back to eating god's-own breakfast noodle. Thank you for doing the lord's work Chris and Steph!
Something my family has made for ages is a jidanjiang, like chinese miso paste (not sure what to call it in english) and egg curd sauce that we serve atop vegetables or noodles. I would love to see an exploration of that from yall since I don't actually know anything about the history or if there are other regional variations.
Me too! My grandma and my mom used to make that when we didn’t have anything else at home and it’s so simple and quick and tasty. I love eating the sauce with congee or noodle.
Love your channel! And the recipes of course! And your 'tauco' pronounciation is pretty good too 👍
Just want to kindly clarify that 'bahasa' literally means 'language' if you translate it to English. So it is more accurate (and makes me, this particular Indonesian, happy 😊) if you say 'bahasa Indonesia' instead. I know it's much longer but there you go 😁
Or maybe just say "Indonesian" instead cuz, when you translate the word "bahasa indonesia" to english, it means Indonesian
(CMIIW)
😱
As a someone from a family who have no chefs in the family tree and don't care about subtle flavors, our meat sauce for topping noodles is just ground pork and half a packet of store-bought ... some sort of sauce. My personal favorite is a product called 香其酱, but generic 豆瓣酱 or northeastern 大酱 are also something my family or extended family sometimes use. Other than the packet of sauce, we don't really add anything else to the wok (no sugar no soy no five spice or whatever). Eggs instead of meat is also sometimes what my family cook up, if we happened to not have ground meat or when they feel like going a healthier route.
This channel has made me so happy since I found it. Very precise recipes.
So glad I stumbled on this the same day I got ground pork in my CSA box. Far more exciting than my typical family polpetti recipe, and from the best English language resource for Chinese Christine I’ve found outside of Dunlop’s books! You’re both invaluable educators and wonderfully practical resource!!
Thank you! this is exactly how i feel about ma po fusion foods. I wanted to add that in Ma po tofu, the tofu itself is playing the role that a starch based ingredient normally does (to absorb flavor and dilute saltiness) so the tofu seems almost redundant in a lot of these ma po fusion foods.
you have to try Mandy Lee's mapo to-fummus, seriously. she's an amazing cook. and the to-fummus (or whatever we want to call it) is cooling and complements the dish perfectly. her recipes are fussy, for sure, but she gets it right. her mochi bread (milk bread with a rice tangzhong) is amazing, too, and I'm generally NOT a fussy cook. sometimes, though, it's worth it.
that said, I'm happy to see a roujiang recipe, even as someone who rarely eats meat! I do eat it sometimes, though, and when I don't, Impossible burger would work great for something like this. thank you, as always, Chris and Steph!
The comment sections is always filled with people's wonderful insights to possible substituted and various life experience with the dishes. Makes it feel like one big happy family
One of those pantry/fridge ready flavor mixes that I will definitely add to my collection :) Honestly our fridge is filled with prepped flavors and stocks that cooking something on a weeknight is fast and delicious!
We used to call this chinese spaghetti sauce when we were young. This is so good to stir into pasta or rice!
Mapo tofu is a masterpiece. The delicacy of the tofu is the star. Why would you do that? So glad we have this meat sauce to try. Love this channel so much 💛
this is the best cooking channel!
I have been obsessed with making chili sauces lately so I cannot wait to try these recipes.
this channel is incredible. thanks so much you two for sharing all of this. its been so much fun bonding with my mom over cooking these dishes. whenever i visit her, we try something new or keep it lazy and cook something familiar.
I love it, it's the Chinese answer to spaghetti bolognese (the UK version, obviously) I'm definitely making this to smother over noodles.
"ma la beef slop" sounds SUPER appetising!
This channel is fantastic 💜
New to the channel and had to make this--I made the beef sauce and it's amazing!
I used a small frying pan to fry the spices (tipping it up a bit so the oil pooled to one side), then moved over to a 12" frying pan for the rest of it, and followed the instructions to a T. Definitely going to make this again and the only thing I'm going to adjust is cranking up the hot peppers, I love fire.
Looking forward to trying more of your recipes!
Thanks so much for this recipe! I’m Indonesian and I confirm your pronunciation for tauco is correct 👌🏻
As some one who can’t eat spicy food- thank you for including a non-spicy version of this “dish”!!🥰🥰
I learned so much watching this one video! Thank you for your work, and 祝你有幸福的一天. 💖
(Excuse me if the Chinese is wrong. I used a translator but wanted to wish your team a blessed day.)
Oh! So happy you used Xia Jie's weejios... I love her so much; she is so cute! I've learned so much about Shaanxi cuisine from her channel.
I found it so fun when the analogy of a chili dog was used here to explain because I was starting to think the same thing. LOL
I imagined how you got permission to shoot in the hotdog shop. "Ermm... can we come in with a bowl of meat sauce to slather on your hot dogs?... We definitely are not recipe testing for a competing Chinese flavored chili dog"
Im Indonesian Chinese and Your tauco pronunciation is pretty accurate!
Living in the countryside of northern Japan, I found mapo ramen and mapo tenshinhan, both of which were amazing and would leave you in a food coma for hours.
The mala beef sauce is *amazing* in quesadillas! I'm blown away!
I’d never heard of mapo tofu before this actually.. I was vegan for 3 years and developed an affinity for tofu but I love mixing it was meats these days. I know what’s on my meal planning next week now 🎃
Oh my god, mala beef slop has me excited like wow. Mala beef slop noodles here I come.
I watched this thinking at first it was going to be more similar to an Italian American meat sauce. But then by the mala version I was like...this is more akin to chili. The chili dog idea at the end has me wanting to try this out.
Agreed. For much of the video all I could think of was, "That would be amazing on a hot dog or baked potato."
I really want to make a chili with sichuan peppercorns now
That rain... But a question: if I made a couple of jam jars of roujiang, how long would they keep in the fridge? This looks like it's going to be eaten in small scoops with other stuff!
So from what people say online, 1-2 months... BUT with the large quantities of garlic/aromatics and such I personally don't try to keep it *too* long. It also freezes very well, so we've been putting it in little ~2 portion baggies, tossing in the freezer, and simply grabbing some when we want it.
And yeah, rainy season in Bangkok's... a thing, lol. We're actually reasonably lucky with our setup at our new place - if we were in an apartment, I dunno if we could film on a balcony with rain that heavy.
If you want it to keep awhile in the fridge make sure it's covered by about half an inch of oil.
you could freeze it in ice cube trays and store in freezer bags. Ive done this before with homemade spaghetti sauce. Come to think of it, this is basically china's take on spaghetti sauce!
They can last virtually forever if you salt them enough
@@AidanNaut0 this!
Everyone is talking about using this meat sauce in different dishes. For me it looks a bit like the seasoned meat I use in Dan Dan Noodles. Pork, seasoning, sechwan peppercorn, bean paste, green onion. If I make this I will try it as a slightly more complex meat sauce for Dan Dan. Also thank you for clearly showing the yellow bean sauce. I know I can find it in one of the 2 Chinatown shopping districts nearby, but some of those stores care hundreds of different jars of sauces so seeing it will help immensely when trying to look at a couple hundred jars on the shelf.
Kenji has one of these in his Wok book. He calls it "Pepperoni XO Sauce."
It's good.
i mean its basically chili, a flavorful spiced meat sauce thats borderline a meal, thats chili. it even has beans in it for one of the recipes. It reminds me of skyline chili in some small ways.
Im almost tempted to try and make this for a chili competition to see if in the US itd be accepted
i can't imagine adding msg to a dish that already has douban; such strong flavors already
This is like the Chinese version of BBQ cookout beans with ground beef. I eat that as a rice topper too.
3:58 i believe _'Bahasa'_ is Indonesian for 'language', derived from Sanskrit _'bhāsha'_
As an Indonesian, I'd like to confirm that your pronunciation of the word "tauco" is correct. However, we usually natively spell the /tʃ/ sound as (c) proper, with no addition of "h" ("ch" is usually only for loanwords).
Also, nice video!
nice recipe also the background at the end was really cool
Surprisingly I find OK! Brand 黄豆酱in any big grocery stores in Nairobi, Kenya
Omg...the word choice of "Mala Beef Slop" 🤣 I zoned out a bit during the explanation of the recipe but was startled with laughter as I heard "mala beef slop...done"
I almost laughed out loud when I saw chief Wang Gang's face at 2:31.
We have followed you since 2018 and love all the dishes. We wanted to show family the dry pot recipe but we couldn’t find it anywhere!? Was that video taken off? The seasoned spice mix made that dish!
We love my moms pork sauce on everything! Thx for this video. I’ve never had the beef sauce!
You knew I needed this in my life before I did. This is added to my list of things I want to try. And it also reminded me of my resolution to cook more mapo tofu. XD
Thanks for allowing me to find my ancestor dialect name.
Been trying to search for it for decades.
Teochew from Chaozhou. 😂
May I say, kudos on using soy beans on the custom sauce, because that makes it quite mapo-tofu-ish in its own right. Technically, you're getting a more focused soy bean flavour, and filling out the sauce without superfluous bean curd chunks. Mapo Soy Beans instead of Mapo Tofu.
The moment you mentioned Mapo Tofu all I heard was "The Priest Smiles" 😂
You almost pronounced "tauco" perfectly except the "u" should sounds like "u" in tofu. Great show as always!
Looks good! Chinese food is the best.
Thanks for the video!
感谢您的食谱
Your pronunciation of Tauco is good! In Malaysia, it's called Taucu
Can make a video with the szezwhan spicy peanut chicken,
My wife and i would love the recipe
i used to get it for my birthday
everyyear here in canada. Then the restaurant changed places and now its a lunch only fastfood place
Mala hotdog topping sounds amazing!
Really interesting mixing of flavors
Guy at 1:48 has massive "cajun in overalls ladling up etouffee" energy.
Omg, looks so mouth watering. Thanks for the detailed instructions. Eat over noodles 🍜
Will definitely give both of these recipes a go, and since lots of Chinese cooking typically combines pork with shrimp, I have a mindset to try the first recipe with shrimp instead of pork (for someone with a weird diet). As for the second recipe, minus the black beans (like you did...Freudian Slip? XD), it's similar to an American/Mexican chili recipe; we may not fry chili in a wok, and our recipes are all over the place, but for the most part, it's a very similar recipe.
I tried this after watching the video a few month ago. We loved it and it's now part of our standarts. Came back to the video because I keep forgetting the name.. We just called it Chinese Bolognese 😬
This inspired to try this as a pasta dish.
dude this and congee sounds so good..
Chinese ragu Bolognese. Goes on everything, rice, noodles, pasta, chilli dogs and ... Erm ... Ramen
Cool. I have that exact dark soy sauce at home. Lee kum Kee premium dark soy sauce.
Mapo tofu is super good. My go to is twice cooked pork. As always awesome channel
Definitely going to make the mala option.
As usual, great video!
They both sound great, I kind of do the mala beef slop already and it's good.
Mabo tofu ramen is so sweet and wonderfully mild in Japan.
As a Canadian expat, I'm just viscerally offended that someone mixed mapo tofu and poutine. Jfc how drunk were they?!
Hello new watcher, the only issue i have is the quantity of oil used in asian style cooking. Very tasty by all means and would try.
Kind of bummed out that you didn't mention the Beijing fried sauce(Zha Jiang). It has been a constant favorite choice amount all the meat sauces to me. Although it almost only goes with noodles (炸酱面), you just can't resist the aggressive fragrance of a bowl of fresh-out-of-wok Zha Jiang.
they have a recipe on that a long while ago
Thanks!
Chinese chili
I love it!
That looks bangin. Nothing else to say really.
Roujiang looks like a Chinese sloppy joe! awesome, I'm making this tonight!!
i used to put on pasta with the meat sauce
It looks awesome. However, my experience eating it is it is too greasy and on the sweet side. Not a fan of overly oily dishes.
Every culture eat some form of meaty sauce as we all eat the same thing but cook it based on taste preferences.
I am canning fruit preserves and along with meat sauces. I think I will add some dry mushrooms and yellow bean sauce to my recipe for a fusion addition. Thanks for the recommendation. Love your videos 🎉
That bahasa sounded more chinese but I'm Malaysian so it's like a brit trying to comment on midwestern english pronunciation.
I'm a bit confused by the beer shown in the second recipe. Is it supposed to go in the dish or in the chef?
Is a wok absolutely needed? I have an electric hob. 4 halogen rings and a twice more powerful induction ring.
But all these need flat bottom pans. Can heavy duty pot say a big Dutch oven. Or a tall walled cast iron pan. Be used for this.
I did have a glass lid from another pan. That fits my big cast iron pan. And obviously the Dutch oven has its own lid. This is oval shaped and can sit across the induction hob and 1 of the halogen rings. So a hotter and colder zone are possible. Induction ring can get to the smoke point of almost all oils. Canola, peanut, sunflower etc.
Down size that sets of smoke alarm.
But I have done indoor barbecues this way if it's raining outside. Rather that using either my portable gas barbecue or built in charcoal barbecue.
BTW the charcoal one can reach high enough heat, that with my pizza stone or especially my pizza steel I can do high temperature pizzas.
Also can burn aromatic woods in a special smoke can to do smoking of meats etc. Obviously restricting air inlets to lower the temperature and promote a long burn.
Or do I invest in a flat bottom wok. Seen some of them online. Flat bottom, curved inside side to side , encapsulated copper interior between steel or iron base, and steel or cast iron interior.
Can highly recommend Mandy Lee’s Mapo tofummus! It was delicious
mapo tofu ramen is awesome! when ever I have left over I will cook up some shin ramen and add mapo tofu to it.
Isn't the bean sauce you used from Thailand? It's written in Thai.
Can I store this kind of souce..for long time in fridge and use it spoon full whenever I need?
this looks delicious, i can't wait to make this
I've done exactly that using a sauce built up from mapo tofu w/o the tofu or meat. Used shitake water as a base, added some chinkiang vinager & sweetened it a tad. ran through the blender & strained. I use it as a dip for mo mo (Tibetan steamed beef dumplings).
Where are you that has a Deschutes Brewery poster on the wall??
Couldn't help but notice the ubiquitous craft beer coasters/logos on the wall behind steph. Did you place them there? Will there ever be a video about chinese beer culture? Is there much to talk about? How is the situation in thailand?
Huh, I attempted a sort of mala "mapo noodle" thing last week and I felt it was missing something. Think I'll give your version a go soon!
Might want to check the captions at 9:59. "a half tablespoon ofjnnnnn sugar".
Petition to rename this video "Chinese Meat Sauce A.K.A Mala Beef Slop"
Try cutting the corn off of the cob and then pan roast it. Dave Chang's Corn Miso is a dish that will give you the idea. Cheers!
Wish you could hand me all that food over through the screen right now...
I can't afford all these custom ingredients from the import stores.. but it all looks so delicious.. but I guess my daily pizza is okay. T.T
Some day I'll make this for my bf and I
Looks easy and quick, no effort AT ALL... 😂😂😂👍🏻