Tofu. It’s such a divisive food – either you like it, or you avoid it like the plague. Maybe it’s the rubbery texture you don’t like, or if you’re on the other side of the camp, the silken texture that you love. Some might say it’s bland and flavourless, while others would counter with tofu’s ability to soak up flavours like a sponge.

The thing is, we agree with everything that people say about the white fleshy substance. It can bore you with its tameness. Make you wonder why it was included in the dish. But it can also invigorate with its teasing of complex textures and flavours, and leave you wanting more. How you use it, care for it and how much you believe in its power to challenge all assumptions can make or break a tofu experience.

In this recipe for Mapo Tofu, it’s all about taking the innocuous cubes of soy product and transforming it into a marvellous of explosion of flavour. Before the tofu even hits the pan, we create a sauce base that is supercharged with umami and spice (watch the video to hear us talk about all the trinkets that go into the sauce). And only then, do we submerge the tofu in the flavoursome bath until the cubes are drunk on deliciousness and pillow-soft with moisture.

With that sort of TLC injected into every morsel of tofu, you’ll convert any tofu hater to a tofu lover.