Category: Beef, Lamb & Game

Beef, Lamb & Game / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / Northwest (Xinjiang, Shaanxi)

Xinjiang Cumin Lamb (Ziran Yangrou, 孜然羊肉)

Chengdu Challenge #14: The Mystery of ‘Sichuan Cumin Lamb’ Happy Year of the Sheep! No one in my family is a sheep, so this Chinese New Year just makes me think of food, and, more precisely, of lamb. It also gives me the perfect excuse to try to solve one of the biggest mysteries about Sichuan restaurants in America: Why do they always feature cumin lamb? Cumin lamb is not a Sichuan dish. Traditional Sichuan restaurants in Sichuan don’t serve lamb, and they rarely use cumin. And you won’t find a recipe for cumin lamb in any Sichuan...

Shui Zhu Beef

Beef, Lamb & Game / Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Restaurant Classics / Sichuan Pantry Compatible

Sichuan Water-Boiled Beef (Shuizhu Niurou, 水煮牛肉)

Chengdu Challenge #12: A Sichuan Outlaw 水煮 (shuǐzhǔ), or “water-boiled” dishes, may be Sichuan’s most notorious food—feared and loved in equal measure. Shuizhu’s reputation as a dish for the daring precedes it. But those brave enough to dip into its sea of málà—chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorn—to fish out a piece of buttery soft beef (or pork, or fish) are rewarded with the realization that shuizhu is not nearly as lethal as its reputation. It was a shocking sight the first time I saw Chef Qing Qing make 水煮牛肉 (shuǐzhǔ niúròu),...

Mapo tofu

Beef, Lamb & Game / Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Douchi / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / Plant / Restaurant Classics / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

The Queen of Mapo Doufu Recipes (Mapo Tofu)

Chengdu Challenge #10: The Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine’s Mapo Doufu Recipe Best tofu dish in the world? Mapo doufu, without a doubt. You may be thinking that’s not saying much. But it is. In fact, forget that it features tofu. I’ll put this beefy, spicy, doubanjiang chili bean dish up against your favorite American beef-and-bean chili any day. I’ve been making mapo doufu—“pock-marked mother’s bean curd”—for years. It was one of the first dishes I learned from our brilliant chef Qing Qing back when I organized cooking classes for travelers...

Beef, Lamb & Game / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Sichuan Hot and Spicy Beef (Xiangla Feiniu, 香辣肥牛)

Chengdu Challenge #6: A Spicy Beef Challenge in More Ways Than One “This is the only dish that’s spicy enough for girls’ night,” said my 15-year-old daughter, Fongchong, as she dove into Hot and Spicy Beef. She may be right. Though I’ll be working hard in this blog to disabuse readers of the notion that all Sichuan food is spicy, some dishes are indeed fiery. And out of all the spicy Sichuan dishes I regularly cook, this one is the spiciest. As a result, we generally save it for Wednesday...