Now that the Atlanta Pizza Days is officially over, the last two weeks my life has been devoid of taste excitement. How can I ever go back to regular eating? Would I do another series? What would it be? Folks have been throwing ideas at me – hot wings, burgers, cheese steaks, burritos…the possibilities are endless.
Perhaps I’ll do one of those one day (lord knows I have a special places in my digestive system for hot wings), but for now I want to get back in the kitchen. Not that I’m giving up on dining out, but I spent a heck of a lot of money on the pizza series, and I like a good mix of cooking at home and going out to eat.
Like Jeff Varasano’s pizza was the driving force behind the pizza series, I’ve found another topic of intrigue, stemming from a single picture by . I’ve heard tales of Rowdy’s incredible chicken, and when I inquired he directed me to author Fuschia Dunlop, who I’ve come to find out is one of the foremost western writers on Sichuan cooking. I immediately ordered her famous cookbook .
My experience with Sichuan (or Szechuan, Fuschia spells it Sichuan and it’s easier to type so I’m going that route) is limited to a few meals at Tasty China, Little Szechuan, and Delicious Kabob. You will also see a few bastardized versions of Sichuan dishes such as Gong Bao (aka Kung Pao) at most any “Americanized” Chinese restaurant.
There are some that consider these Sichuan spots to be overrated or the overall genre as trendy, but these restaurants introduced me to Sichuan cooking, and I want to learn more. Dry-fried meats, judicious use of cilantro, wonderful textures, savory flavor combinations, chiles galore, plus the general intrigue of the Sichuan peppercorn has me hooked.
Above: Dry-fried eggplant at Delicious Kabob
At home, my Chinese cooking is slightly better than dismal. My experience with my wok is pathetic, my dumplings come out slimy or burned, soups just aren’t quite what I taste when I eat out (just what are they putting in there???), and my go to ingredient for heat/kick is simply sambal oelek.
Thus, I decided that I’m going to expand my cooking knowledge and really dig into the Land of Plenty. It will not suffer the fate of so many of my other cookbooks (with apologies to Bobby Flay and the Lee Brothers). I really want to disover what Sichuan is all about, get outside of my cooking safety zone, and learn something new. I will avoid shortcuts, try to do things the right way, and I will document my success and failure alike.
So let the Sichuan fun begin! Post #1 is coming tomorrow – “Sichuan 101 & Ingredients”
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