The Forty-fourth Day: 5 May 2020 (194,990 confirmed infected, 29,427 died, in total)

"The coronavirus pandemic has us stuck at home and looking for a way to cope. For many people, it's cooking." – CNN

This is not only true in the US, but also in the UK – with restaurants closed and delivery service limited, for most of daily meals, people have to prepare in their own kitchens. Check the tag “#quarantinecook” on Twitter, you will find gourmets locked down in their own kitchens sharing their productions and recipes. A lot of my friends, either in China or the UK, have had a boost in their cooking skills during the lock-down. Well, the virus has finally done something good.

British people are generally considered as not good at cooking – if you search “British cooking” on Quora, the top result entries will read: “Why is British food often perceived to be terrible?” “Why are the English notorious for bad cooking?” and “Can English people cook?” In spite of that, British do like cooking, this can be reflected and testified by numerous cooking TV programmes, full shelves of cooking and baking recipes at bookstores, and high popularity of cooking classes hosted by French or Italian chefs all around London.

A big portion of British people like Chinese cuisine, but hardly any of them want to give a try on cooking a Chinese dish. Actually, it is really hard to cook a Chinese dish with full authentic flavour and perfect texture before years’ of training and practice, but if one just want to experience Chinese way of cooking and make something scoring 70 or 80 out of 100 marks, it is not that daunting. I will briefly show you how to cook a world-famous Chinese dish, “Ma Po Tofu”, which was on our table this evening.

“Ma Po Tofu”, literally “Tofu made by a pockmarked gammy”, is a famous Sichuan cuisine dish (which suggests hot and spicy). Japanese like it best, and it is possibly the most famous and widespread Chinese dish around the globe.

Ingredients (some can only be found in a Chinese or Asian supermarket/grocery shop):

Tofu (bean curd, soft or silken; never use firm or dried tofu), minced beef or pork, broad bean sauce (“Doubanjiang”, red paste with chilli) and garlic sprout (young stem of garlic).

Steps:

1. Cut tofu into 2 cm by 2 cm cubes; cut garlic sprout in to 0.5 cm grains.

2. Boil tofu cubes for 2 minutes in boiling water, drain off water.

3. Heat a wok, pour in vegetable oil (ideally peanut oil), go on heating until the oil slightly smokes.

4. Put minced beef (or pork) and garlic sprout grains into the wok and stir-fry until the scent of meat comes out.

5. Put in broad bean sauce and go on stir-frying. Add a little water if it becomes too dry.

6. Pour in the tofu cubes and carefully stir them in the wok (try not to break the cubes).

7. Add salt and chicken powder for seasoning (do not add too much, the broad bean sauce is already pretty salty).

8. Ready to serve!

It is perfect to eat “Ma Po Tofu” with a bowl of hot steamed rice – and prepare a chilled drink in case it is too spicy for you. Sitting beside the table, you will be brought to China by your gustatory sensation. The coronavirus may limit our footsteps, but it cannot limit our tongues and taste buds.