Bowen Yang Teaches Matt Rogers How to Cook Mapo Tofu | NYT Cooking

They didn't let us do the pizza interview. They think gay guys can't do pizza. Who said gay guys can't do pizza? Hm? Bon. Hey, this is Matt Rogers. Bowen Yang. We're here with New York Times Cooking. The house that Melissa Clark built. And we're here to make my mom's mapo tofu recipe. And I was such a little ---- growing up. I don't like this, what is this? And now that I'm a grown man, I will spend the rest of my life asking for her forgiveness. Yeah, I was a little ---- as well. And I would go to birthday parties and I wouldn't eat the pizza because the tips were too cold. I can't explain it to you earlier. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Pizza, much like your extremities, you start to feel the chill at the tip. There's not like blood vessels though. The pizza tips got cold and I was a little brat about it. I came here for college to this den of sin, New York City. And anytime I would go back home, this is what she makes for me. To this day, does it. When I'm in the car on the way home, she goes, I'm making the mapo tofu. Does your mom know you're sharing this with us? She doesn't know. She doesn't know he even moved to New York. She doesn't know I'm here. She doesn't know where he's been. I don't overwhelm my mom with my life. What do all moms want? I think she would feel very vulnerable if I shared her recipe. So she's from the North. Mapo tofu is from Sichuan province from the South. She makes it in a way that is not your typical mapo tofu where it's super stewy and saucy. She brings some of the North. She brings some of the North in. Yeah. If this was a few years ago, we could be like queen of the North and that would be a good Game of Thrones joke. Huge, fun Game of Thrones timely joke. Matt, have you tried this recipe before? I have never tried this recipe before. Matt has a thing where he does not want a home cooked meal. It's not that I don't want a home cooked meal. I'd rather go to a restaurant because that's where I know they got it down. You know what I mean? I go to your house and it's like, what did you think? Eye contact. And I'm like, ah, loved it. I've made many things for Matt. Always good. What do you mean always good? You never try it. Every time I have it, it's always good. Such as? Such as. Well, you've made stew. I think I had some bites of it. And we're about to make a tofu stew. In a way, in a sense. Let's begin. Mapo tofu is named after a lovely elderly woman. Really? Yeah. Mapo means pockmarked woman. Parkmarked woman? Pockmarked woman. She pocks with a CKS, not X. Oh, okay. Matt is a dilettante in the kitchen. I'm gonna help to the best of my ability. Okay, Matt. Yeah. I'm gonna need you to take a tablespoon of this. These are red Sichuan peppercorns. I turn the stove on, I guess. So this has to go in the bowl and then I... No, no, no. Let's turn the heat on this. Okay, which one? This one. Got it. Let's do like a medium low heat. You're gonna wait for that to smoke just a little bit. And then you're gonna put that in and then toast that for a few minutes while I slice the tofu. This is literally a brick. Look at that. That's a wonderful brick. This is firm. Speaking of bricks, how about we all brick our phones? Three, two, one. Yeah, give them a shake. Are you familiar with the Ma La sensation? I could guess what it is. I'm doing a terrible job at slicing this. Oh no, you should have done this, I'm sorry. But it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. The Ma La sensation is... That's done? Okay, so I should get them out. Get them out, put them in that. Now, which is the mortar and which is the pestle to you? I don't think you should ask me any questions. Like, I'm just saying, I'm asking because I don't know. Okay, so I'm just intuiting. Do I now sort of crunch this up? Yes, and you're gonna wanna do a circular motion so that it all grinds up against the sides. Done it. Okay, great. It can be music too, cooking. Can I be vulnerable right now? Always. It's what the judges are looking for. When someone at work is watching, you use the computer, you just don't know where any of the files are. The fact that I'm being watched while I'm cooking is like really terrifying. It's crazy. This is a crazy thing for you guys to do. But congrats, it's amazing. Okay, I'm salting the water right now. I gotta say, this pepper is smelling really good. Oh, back to Mala. Yeah. It is basically gonna numb your tongue. It's like a spiciness, but it's not like, ah, spicy. It's more like, ooh. Oh, I love that. You know? Would you call this? That's ground, for sure. We're gonna set that aside. Okay. And then I want you to very gently take some of these tofu pieces, load them up on the spoon, and then you're gonna gently cradle them into the water bath. So here we go. Here we go. Ow. And this is actually good, because what I do is I take them by the hand and I plop them in and I get some splash, and I get a little burn. Okay, don't want that. We have a culture awards to promote. So we're heating up our wok. How about you take these garlic cloves and you're gonna put them in the press? Can all three fit? I think they can. Yeah. Wow. That's great. Oh, this is a nice, this is actually a perfectly sized wok for this kind of stove. Sometimes I go and guest host the Today Show and we'll do a cooking segment, and they go, now Matt, chop that up. And one time I just went, and literally everyone was like, he's gonna laugh his fingers off on live television. I didn't, as you can see. But it could happen today. Did we sign in like an insurance waiver for anything? Oh my god, we should have. Chop up some of that ginger too. Yes. I don't believe you have to peel it. So is it okay that this all is in there? Oh, don't do that in there. You should just slice it and then, you know what I mean? You see what I'm saying? Turn off the water for our tofu. We're just gonna let it steep in there for a little bit. How's this? More chops? Way more chops. How about you nurse this for a little? Wow, this is, oh man. What? I don't care about it. So you really never cook, Matt? One time I was like, I'm gonna cook, and I made myself a blue cheese encrusted filet mignon. That was the one thing I ever cooked. Gorgeous. And like, didn't that inspire you to do more? Kind of. But first of all, can I say, I'm way ahead of you in the comments. I get it. It's this idea of like, I'm gonna put a lot of time into something. Break that up, break that up, break that up. Break it up. Really get in there. Yeah. It's the idea of like, I'm gonna spend a lot of time on something and then I'm gonna eat it in two seconds and it's gonna be gone. Like, I don't have a lot of patience for that. I'm that girl. No, I'm just saying, isn't it beautiful that it's like a thing that you had a manual experience with and then you get to enjoy it on a sensory level in another way? It is beautiful. It's just not, um. Like, what's the difference between that and like a cocktail that you make? I don't make myself cocktails either. Ooh. It's really happening in here. Now I'm gonna talk about this wonderful ingredient, dou ban jiang. Dou ban jiang. I'm not gonna be fussy with the tones. Broad bean chili paste, backbone of Sichuan cooking. We're gonna use a couple tablespoons once Matt is done babysitting this pork. Isn't this fun? Yeah. Have either of you ever worked in the food service industry? I waited tables for 10 years. Nicky's on the Bay, which was a seafood restaurant on Long Island, Ulysses in the financial district, and then I worked at a place called Brooklyn Crab. And all of them had raw bars, so I became like a raw bar expert. I know all about those suckers, meaning oysters. But yeah, I was a pretty good server. I wasn't like the guy who was like kneeling down at the table. It's like casual professional. The right sort of emotional distance. You knew my name. You didn't know where I live. Some of my friends would be like, oh, you guys can, you know what I'm saying? It's like, their names are like TJ a lot. Does this explain the aversion to cooking? Is that you love raw food? You know what it was? My mother was never like, get in the kitchen, we're learning how to cook. She wasn't like a culinary queen. It was just like, we're making food that's like good and easy, and that's kind of it. This counts as that. Every Chinese family knows how to make a version of this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're gonna add a couple of tablespoons of doubanjiang. This smells amazing. I worked at an ice cream shop called Maggie Moo's. The girly alternative to Cold Stone. If you know, you know. She is a really sort of high femme cow. People always asked us if we could sing. That was not your thing. We were told explicitly by management, do not sing. I was silenced at a young age. And this is supposed to be the high femme girly pop ice cream, and they wouldn't even let you sing when you're happy? Exactly. I'm gonna add my garlic, my chili powder, and my ginger. And I'm gonna work it in. Yes, you're doing great, by the way. I'm so proud. Is that patronizing? No, I'm not good at it. So when someone's like, wow, really good job, that's good. I never pretended I was gonna be good. I actually came in warning everyone. I said, you asked for it. You asked for me to do this. How high is your spice tolerance? My spice tolerance is pretty high. And Matt, what about you? Mine's getting worse over time, actually. I feel like my body is very quickly changing as I get a little bit older. Spice knocks me out. Roller coasters are not fun. Sad. The forces of the world affect me more nowadays. And I used to love spicy. Back when I was in high school and I had straight male friends I wanted to impress, we'd go to the bars around town and be like, let's eat the hot wings, where if you get through them, you get your name on the wall. Sounds like TJ. I was just happy to have code switched another day. Yeah. Now I don't do that for anyone. I come in, I say, I can't cook. I'm gay. You say that every time you walk into the room. What we've done is we've added a tablespoon of soy sauce, a teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of ching jang vinegar. Can we give it up for soy sauce? Vinegar. No, I know. One of our favorite categories this year is best sauce. Right. And the nominees are red, white, secret, meat, and secret meat. And I think soy was snubbed. Soy, I think, is so iconic. We all know it's great in spite of the fact that it has not been appropriately accoladed and awarded. It is very Glenn Close. It is very Susan Lucci. It is very me, frankly. No. It's true. I'm on track to lose my sixth Emmy this summer. We're just waiting for the sauce to thicken and then we're gonna thicken it even more with the slurry. I'm so excited. What do you think about the word slurry having the word slur in it? I really didn't think about it until you said it. Now I can believe the word slur is in that. God! I used to think that my mom makes the best spaghetti and meatballs. And then you get older and you're like, kind of spaghetti and meatballs all taste the same. But her sauce really was killer. Her red sauce would have won the culture award. I'm realizing my mom left a lot of things dry. Kraft mac and cheese was clumpy as hell, but I loved it that way. Yeah. Spaghetti sauce was mostly pure paste and not much else. And then this mapo tofu is like on the drier side. You can go to your restaurants, they're gonna really bathe it in this stuff. This is gonna distribute quite well across the pound or so of tofu that we have. Again, you guys, I did a terrible job with the cubing of it. I'm sorry. Let the people that eat it say you did terrible. Okay, all right, all right. I don't even think you need to agitate it that much. You know what I mean? I didn't know I was agitating to begin with. How about you put the ground peppercorns? Oh, before you do that, do like a little. Ooh. Yeah, what do you think? You don't like it? It's so good. No, I do. I do like it. It's really good. Wow, yeah, it is numb, my tongue. All right, just a little. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. I think do the whole thing. Don't be afraid. I was just doing it for flair. Bam! Remember that one? Where is she? Emeril Lagasse, she, her? Remember when Emeril had a sitcom? Yes, bam. Bam. When it was called Emeril. Yeah. We're gonna add our slurry now. Wow, what's happening to my tongue is really fun. If you were a food dish, what would you be? And can you answer for each other? You know what I'd be. A Bloody Mary? That's not what I was thinking. Buffalo wings. Buffalo dip. And- Wind it back a little bit. Buffalo tender. Why tender? Why not dip? Like, break it down. I'm boneless. If I could guilt-free eat one thing for the rest of my life, it would be buffalo chicken tenders. Drenched in buffalo sauce. I will eat anything if you put buffalo on it. This is like on the other side of like the spicy condiment wheel. It's like buffalo sauce is a really acidic, sort of stringent kind of spiciness, and this is like mellow, still spicy, but like deep. It's not that we are our favorite foods, but I do think that you are a deeply comforting beef stew. Yeah. I was gonna say beef stew, or like a beef noodle soup. But that's also your favorite. Exactly. But we are our favorite foods. We are who we are. It's crazy what's happening in my mouth. It's been happening for years and years. For years, people have felt this sensation in their mouth. Yes, and they chase it. They love this stuff. They're gonna bring this to the Western world. Here they are. Tofu is something that I feel like, it's like one of those foods you're supposed to fear when you're a kid, like Brussels sprouts. Yeah. Remember when Brussels sprouts was like a dirty word? Now you grow up, you realize it rocks. It rocks. You want it on the table at all times. Tofu feels like Kate Bush. Like you're just not gonna get it if you're a kid. But then once you grow up, you're like, oh, I love that. I want a little tofu. That was a Kate Bush tofu song. I want a little tofu. It's still a little soupy. Is there anything I can do to help that? No, you're really agitating well. Who is the worst chef to ever come in? I'm not gonna come in. We're gonna cut this part out. I love that we go, was Meg Stalter a good cook and they go, she's great. I don't think she would mind us talking about her. Oh, she'd love it. She'd love it. She's a pop star now. Pop star. She's performing at the Culture Awards. If New York Times Cooking won a Lost Culture East Coast Culture Award, what category would it be? Most pleasant comment section. I'd say hottest staff. I'm looking around. And not just cause you're standing around the burners all day. We're gonna let this sort of cool off a little bit. And then the sauce will sort of firm up. Just when I was getting it. We're gonna sprinkle on some toasted sesame oil. Just sort of give it an extra gloss. It smells good in there. I like to sort of have it all mingle together. I think you just put however much rice you feel comfortable with. I'm gonna do that much for now. Come to me, let me serve you. What is this song? Come to me, let me serve you. See, wouldn't it be a shame if this was Maggie Moos right now? We couldn't do any of that. It's gonna be a little hot. It's so good. I love it. It's got the tingle. It'll clear your sinuses. How many times do you make this for yourself in a month? I don't usually make this for myself. This is like mom. She nails it every time. Ooh, we put a lot of peppercorn in this. Yeah, I just got a little hit. Wow, well thanks so much New York Times Cooking. This has been a fabulous time in the kitchen with my friend. And this is really good. You gotta try it at home. And if I can do it, you really can too. You can watch the Lost Culture, East Coast Culture Awards on Bravo and Peacock. It's streaming, babe. That's how Peacock works.