Continuing with my initial post on Land of Plenty, I started off by reading Fuschia Dunlop’s informative introduction to Sichuan cooking.
The background info on how Fuschia got involved with all of this, the historical development of Sichuan cuisine, traditions, and technique was very interesting. I won’t go into too much detail for the sake of brevity, and also as to not rip off her book too much (I suggest reading it if you are really interested), but there are lots of caveats that are very intriguing.
For example, Fuschia discusses the five fundamental tastes of Chinese food – salty, sweet, sour, hot, and bitter. The Sichuan replace bitter with ma, which is the flavor/sensation gained from the eponymous peppercorn used so frequently in Sichuan food. If you haven’t tried a Sichuan pepper (aka prickly ash), it’s quite interesting. It’s extremely fragrant, slightly hot but not overly so, and it actually makes your mouth tingle and go slightly numb, with the effect intensified if you sip some water afterwards.
She also goes into their slightly systematic, yet inventive approach to cooking in the Sichuan area, which by the way, is an area as large as France. The Sichuan cooking encyclopedia includes 23 flavors, 56 cooking methods, and 33 cutting terms (almost exclusively using a cleaver). Even the meal process is somewhat systematic – salty foods should be eaten before bland dishes, stronger flavors before weak, dry dishes before soup.
Traditions are also discussed at length. The hot and spicy reputation of their dishes is believed to have originated from the muggy weather of the Sichuan region, and the Sichuan believe that a spicy meal will expel the dampness from your body and restore vigor. Fuschia discusses the meaning of Xian, which is a word that doesn’t quite translate directly to English, but represents the indefinable, delicious, savory aspect of a meal. MSG is used by chefs to help generate xian in a dish, and Fuschia believes this is a shortcut and she doesn’t use any in her dishes. Another interesting tradition is yi wei, which translates to “peculiar smells”, which has to do with the fact that the Sichuan find the smells and taste of raw meat to be very unappealing. Hence, meat is often blanched, blood is removed, salt, rice, wine, and marinades are used to expel these odors and tastes. This explains why you aren’t going to see medium rare beef in many Sichuan dishes.
Another interesting aspect of Sichuan cuisine is how texture is very important to the Sichuan (and Chinese in general), hence the various cooking and cutting methods, and is also the reason that many cuts of meat are often used that we in the West are unaccustomed to eating. She uses the example of chicken feet, which are eaten for the texture as much as the flavor.
Anyways, this is all interesting to me and is something I can really geek out on. It’s a new approach to cooking for me, and I’m excited take these methods and traditions, put them into action, and add them to my general cooking repertoire.
In addition to all the unique Sichuan technique, there are quite a few ingredients that are not often in the Westerners pantry, and Fuschia provides a suggested shopping list as well as detailed descriptions of these items. Sourcing these ingredients was the next step in this process.
Above is the majority of my shopping bounty. I hit up Super H Mart in Duluth last Saturday with the hopes that I could find everything I needed. I was able to source quite a bit of the shopping list, but I couldn’t find everything. That’s not to say that everything I needed wasn’t there, but I just had a hell of a time navigating the aisles. At one point a nice lady could tell I didn’t know what I was doing and asked if she could help. I said I was looking for Sichuan chili paste, to which she replied “You’re in the Korean section”. Awesome.
That being said, this grocery store rocks. Tons of fun stuff, very good prices, and it’s a nice, clean supermarket.
If you are at the Super H mart, don’t miss out on trying Book Chang Dong Tofu House, which is in the same shopping center. They have amazing tofu soup, decent banchan, and flavorful bbq at a steal of a price.
The rest of my shopping was done at the in China Town on New Peachtree Road. This store is the exact opposite of Super H mart. It’s a small grocer, dimly lit, with dusty shelves, and not a single staff member that I sought out spoke English. If looking for authentic Sichuan ingredients, this is where you can find what ye seek. I even picked up a bunch of bowls, a bamboo steamer, and a cleaver for just a few bucks each.
Let me run through the individual pantry items.
Chinkiang chinese black vinegar and shaoxing rice wine
Bean curd (two kinds, one in chili oil), sesame paste (similar to tahini), red chili bean paste, and sweet bean paste, which they has misspelled to read “chili beam paste”.
Fermented black beans
Brown sugar and red chili powder.
Dried chiles. I believe the chiles on the left are dried thai chilis, which Fuschia says you should only use for garnish as the are way too hot to actually use for cooking.
Star anise – quite fragrant.
It was recommended that I find cassia bark, an inexpensive cousin of cinnamon, but I didn’t see anything labeled as such. This “cinna mon” will have to do.
The famous Sichuan peppercorn.
Daikon radish. Other recommended items there are not photographed: Fresh coriander (aka cilantro), carrots, ginger, garlic, Chinese 5 spice, potato flour/starch, sesame oil, dark and light soy sauce, fresh and dried Chinese noodles (flat and round), and pickled chili paste (chili garlic sauce or sambal oelek will suffice).
Whew. This was quite the weekend of food searching. I hope this search pays off. Stay tuned for recipe #1 – Xie Laoban’s Dan Dan Noodles.
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