So this week, I wanted to show you how to make a dish that maybe you’ve never heard of before - Douhuafan, Sichuan Tofu Rice.
Tofu rice is sort of humble dish at its core – it’s a meal that consists of some freshly-made savory Douhua (‘tofu pudding’ as it’s sometimes called in English, though this sort is a bit firmer than some others), white rice to eat it with, a special chili sauce to smother it all, and the tofu liquid served on the side as a soup. Sort of like Wonton Noodles in Guangdong or a New York-slice in NYC… it’s one of those local dishes that seems universally beloved, irrespective of what your upbringing was or how many zeros your bank balance has. Walk around Southern Sichuan, and you’re in Douhua country.
Of course, there’s a second challenge to making this dish: it’s a… challenging dish. We’ll be making tofu from scratch here, which isn’t too bad but’s definitely a project. And that chili sauce? Ain’t exactly ‘quick and easy’ either. It’s one of those things that, if you lived in Sichuan, would make almost zero sense to make at home. But you don’t live in Sichuan, and I doubt a Douhua restaurant will ever make it to your neighborhood… so here we are. It’s a project, but I think you owe it to yourself to at least try what (in my personal opinion) is the best tofu dish on the planet.