Best bottled/packaged mapo sauce?

[vincentlo]

I've tried probably all the mapo sauce sold in jars or packages in Chinese and Japanese grocery stores available in the Bay Area, but most of them are just blah. Some of them have the hotness from the red chili, but none of them seem to contain Sichuan peppercorns. Any advice?

[bigwheel042]

I make mapo tofu from scratch and IMO it's not much more of a pain than using the packaged stuff. Salted and fermented black beans, dried chiles, and chili bean sauce are the main components of the flavor; the recipe I use also calls for chicken stock, soy sauce, green onion, and a little sugar, but I've omitted some of these in a pinch and the dish still tastes like mapo tofu.

I grind Sichuan peppercorn fresh and sprinkle it on top - like with other spices, I'd imagine that sitting on the shelf after grinding doesn't do wonders for the ma la flavor, anyway.

[marilees]

House Brand "Mabo Tofu sauce" in a box