Nappa cabbage soup

I have no idea if the original recipe this is based on is actually a traditional Sichuan dish.  Whatever.

• 1 Nappa cabbage, tender light green part only (~2 lbs)
• 4 cups water
• 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt + more to taste
• OPTIONAL: 1 teaspoon sichuan peppercorns

Preheat the oven to 300F.  Cut the cabbage into quarters lengthwise.  Remove the tough root from each of the four segments, being otherwise careful to maintain the integrity of the pieces.  Heat a large iron skillet or equivalent that will fit the cabbage quarters.  Cook dry until charred, then rotate and repeat on the other cut side.  Once all pieces are charred, place in a heatproof dish with 4 cups of water and salt and peppercorns if using.  Braise, covered, for 2 hours or until the cabbage has disintegrated into the soup.  Adjust salt and eat.  That's it.  Really.  If you don't like the charred taste, just put everything into the oven from the get-go. .  Note: this gives you gas.

麻婆豆腐 (mapo tofu)

Nothing special here except tofu cutting technique and use of korean pepper paste which helps thicken the sauce without cornstarch or reducing everything too much.  Also, about double the spicy stuff of the traditional recipe: alter the oil, chili flakes, and peppercorns to your taste but keep the ratio.  If you like your MPDF with ground pork, fry it at the same time as the mushrooms in the same fashion (that is, lightly coated with cornstarch and an appropriate amount of soy sauce) until crispy and serve it poured over everything at the end so that it stays crunchy.  Or, leave it vegan mapo tofu- I personally think the shiitake's carry enough presence such that meat is unnecessary.

• 1 brick of silken tofu (16-20oz), cubed into 10mm (see below).  Firmer tofu is for n00bs
• .5C  dried shiitake broth and the two associated mushrooms
• 1t cornstarch
• .25C oil
• 2TB crushed red chili flakes
• 1TB sichuan peppercorns
• 2TB soy sauce
• 1TB 辣豆瓣醬 (Chinese spicy chili broad bean paste)
• 1TB korean red pepper paste
• 1TB fermented black beans, rinsed of grit
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 green onions, whites and greens separated
• .5" minced ginger

The tofu
IMO the main difference between lame mapo tofu and good mapo tofu is the use of silken tofu, and then maintaining it in neat cubes for texture.  To cut the tofu: first cut the top plastic film off using scissors.  Then , cut off one of the bottom corners of the tofu box.  Place a small cutting board on top of the tofu box and then invert: now that you've just cut a vent, you should be able to pull the box off of the tofu without breaking the brick (save the box).  You'll probably need to do two cuts parallel to the cutting board plane to split it into thirds: this is the most annoying part: if you find it too annoying, just do one cut to split it in half (newb).  Then, cut the tofu from the top into 10mm squares: err on the side of smaller, being careful to keep all the pieces together.  Get that box you saved and put it back on top of the now cubed tofu, invert, and now your tofu will be MUCH easier to work with now that it's in a vented box.

The rest
Slice the mushrooms you got from making half the recipe of that mushroom broth into thin strips, about 2mm wide.  Coat with about 1 teaspoon cornstarch.  Heat the oil with the peppercorns on medium high heat.  When they turn dark brown, add the mushrooms and lower the heat to medium after the coating first solidifies.  Add the chili flakes and cook until the oil is red and the chili flakes are darkened but not burnt (this can be tricky...).  When the chili flakes look done, scoop all the solids out with a strainer and set them aside: don't worry about being too thorough.  Add the garlic, green onion, and chili bean paste and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds to a minute.  Add the mushroom broth, soy sauce, ginger, and korean pepper paste and stir until uniform.  Heat through until thick, then gently add the tofu which should be easy now that it's in that neat little box and should drop without too much effort because of that vent.  Using a broad, flat, soft object (i.e. wooden spatula) very gently stir the tofu into the sauce and simmer for 1 or 2 minutes.  To serve, carefully pour the tofu into a bowl, then top with the fried chili flakes/peppercorns/mushrooms you removed earlier, then top with the green onion greens, cut however you believe is the most visually appealing (I like using the shredder thingy that looks like 4 x-acto knives glued together to make long strings).

Dried shiitake broth

When I need a low sodium broth or a vegan broth this is what I use.

• 1C water, hot but not boiling (I use the microwave for 1 minute)
• 4 dried shiitake mushrooms
• Pinch of curry powder (that is, 1/8 teaspoon)

Put the mushrooms in the water.  After another minute or two, they should be soft enough to stick a fork through all of them: the weight of the fork will keep the mushrooms from floating up.  Let sit for another 20-30 minutes, but it works best for several hours or even over night.  Squeeze the mushrooms as you take them out: use them for something else.  Add a pinch of curry powder: you don't want to taste it so much as have it add a little depth.

Important note: cooking the broth for a long time destroys the subtle flavors.  You can heat the broth, but try not to actually cook with it for best results.

嗆包心菜 (Charred cabbage)

One of my favorite foods both to cook and eat.  Short ingredient list.  Neat technique.  Smoky.  Traditional.  About 60 cents per dish.  The final product's taste is highly dependent on the process: too little char and you get tough, flavorless cabbage with bitterness from the raw vegetable taste.  Too much char and it's cancerlicious and bitter from the burnt flakes of cabbage-turned-into-carbon.  When it's done right, it's sweet, smoky; it's tinged with bitterness, complex, and tender-crisp.  I still mess this up.

You need to have a well-seasoned wok or cast iron skillet to make this.  If you don't, don't bother trying.  To make it spicy, I find it simpler to substitute chili oil for the neutral oil rather than trying to cook chilis and peppercorns into the dish, but feel free to do whatever you want.  I like it both ways depending on what else is going on the table.

• 1 small head of cabbage (~ 1lbs.) OR .5 lbs each of red and green cabbage or some combination thereof.  Smaller cabbages tend to be sweeter, so go for them.
• 1 tablespoon canola oil OR 1 tablespoon chili oil
• 2 gloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt, or kosher salt in a pinch
• OPTIONAL: 1 tablespoon Chinese black vinegar or balsamic vinegar
• OPTIONAL: Pinch of shredded Korean chili OR a few slivers of green onion green (see note on plating)

Quarter the cabbage(s) and cut out the root.  Don't be skimpy in discarding the root: it's like $0.40/lbs and it's not worth it.  Cut each quarter along the equator to get eight sections.  Place each section, without separating the leaves, onto the dry wok: it might look crowded, but that's okay.  Allow the cabbage to char for about 4 minutes, then rotate the pieces.  Continue moving around the segments and rotating the pieces until there are charred spots all over the cut surfaces of the cabbage (should be 3 sides per segment): if it starts coming apart, don't worry about it: try to avoid moving the cabbage around until the next layer is charred.   Once all the segments are charred all over, break up the segments into their constituent leaves, and allow to sit in the wok longer, charring the unexposed leaves.  Repeat this process, tossing briefly as necessary, until all the leaves show at least some charring- this takes some practice... good thing cabbage is cheap!  This process should also get easier as the cabbage shrinks from cooking and it starts fitting in your wok better.  Once all the cabbage leaves are tinged with charred spots, clear out the center of the wok and toast the sea salt (if your wok isn't seasoned so well, this is where you're going to see why I told you not to attempt this dish... everything will be stuck at this point and I don't know what to tell you!).  After about a minute, add the oil and garlic to the center and cook until just fragrant, about 30 seconds.  If using the vinegar, add it now to the oil in the center of the wok and let some of the acid release.  Toss to coat everything.  Adjust seasoning using extra sea salt or soy sauce, but most of the time you won't need any.  Once everything is well mixed, plate and serve.

Note on plating: when using green cabbage, I use shredded dried Korean chili for garnish.  For red, I use slivers of green onion greens.  When using both red and green, I arrange the red on the outside in a ring, green mounded in the center with dried Korean chili on top.