Category: How to Cook With Caiziyou

How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Douchi / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / Noodles / Plant / Pork / Sichuan Pantry Compatible

Mapo Eggplant Noodles ft. Dried Knife-Cut Noodles

Mapo Eggplant Ragu for Your Noodles Mapo eggplant noodles came to me in the dark of COVID yesteryear, when many restaurants were still shuttered and even outdoor dining required proof of vaccination. My roommate had generously invited me along to sample the hype of a long-time Sichuan establishment in Manhattan—my initial cause for skepticism. “It’s supposed to be good,” she assured me. “I just want to try it out.” In our rustic COVID cabana (that staple of hastily-assembled wooden sheds replacing sidewalks and bike lanes with bare-bones seating for undaunted...

Vegan mapo tofu

How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Douchi / Plant / Vegetarian

Vegan Mapo Tofu: Chengdu Inspired! (麻婆豆腐)

Meatless Mapo ft. Dried Flower Shiitake~~ This one’s for the tofu-loving vegetarians and vegans out there! Mapo tofu is so beloved, it’s one of the few Sichuan dishes that make it directly into colloquial English without translation. So many regions have their own variations of the dish now too. It’s only natural that vegan mapo tofu has become popular on its own, so this recipe is for Chengdu-inspired mapo tofu with dried shiitake mushrooms. In Sichuan mapo tofu, ground beef (not pork!) is more a flavoring agent than the undiscerning...

a white porcelain jar with chili oil in it with a metal spoonful of the chili oil and a bottle of caiziyou oil in the background

How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Sichuan Chili Oil Recipe ft. Caiziyou (Lajiaoyou, 辣椒油)

Lajiaoyou the Mainland Sichuan Way, ft. Caiziyou When it comes to this Sichuan chili oil recipe, variations abound—but all share three core factors: chilis, oil and heat. Lately, the stateside popularity of dressed up chili oil (make it crispy! with aromatics! with douchi!) has soared. But throw in middling chilis, the sundry tasteless oils available outside of China, and a flimsy grasp of temperature control? Some of that chili oil’s more dressed down than up. So if you’ve wondered why your chili oil doesn’t seem that spicy, or how to...

Sichuan mala hot pot with beef tallow

Beef, Lamb & Game / Chinese New Year / Fish & Seafood / How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Douchi / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / Plant / Restaurant Classics / Soups & Stews / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Sichuan Mala Hotpot, From Scratch (Mala Huoguo with Tallow Broth)

Hotpot Party at Your House Although this recipe for mala hotpot first published in early 2018 is the most popular recipe on our entire blog, we have revised and updated it as of November 2020. Why? Well, when I first developed it, there weren’t many recipes for Sichuan hotpot online in English—and none at all, that I could find, that included beef fat (tallow), a style of hotpot broth widely loved in Chongqing and Chengdu. There probably were Chinese-language online videos and recipes for it, but they were less accessible...

Yibin Ran Mian

How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Yacai / Noodles / Plant / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Yibin Ranmian, 燃面 (Burning Noodles From Yibin, Sichuan)

Noodles via Chinese Cooking Demystified I am so happy to report that I have finally conquered Yibin ranmian (燃面, ránmiàn), a noodle I’ve been longing for and one of the best noodles you have probably never heard of. I’ve been promising to develop this recipe for many years, ever since the first time I had Yibian ranmian in Chengdu. It was 2014, but I remember it like it was yesterday. We (Craig, Fongchong and I) had just eaten a full meal at a famous restaurant that we had nonetheless found...

Yu xiang zucchini

How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Gluten-Free Yuxiang Zucchini ft. Pickled Chili Sauce

Gluten-Free Yuxiang Sauce “Don’t mess with yuxiang!” my family warned me before I started experimenting with this gluten-free yuxiang zucchini dish. Yuxiang eggplant is one of their absolute favorite dishes, and they saw no need to change that beloved sauce even if it was being used with a different vegetable or a meat. But many of you do have a need to change this Sichuan super sauce to one that is gluten free or lower sodium, and Sichuan itself offers a solution. Yuxiang eggplant—usually translated as eggplant in garlic sauce...

Wok-Fried Snapper in Chili Bean Sauce

Chinese New Year / Fish & Seafood / How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Cooking With Pixian Doubanjiang: Wok-Fried Fish in Chili Bean Sauce

Fish, A Wok-Fried Wonder A few years ago I posted a similar recipe to this wok-fried snapper for fish in chili bean sauce (doubanyu), but with the rather odd point of view of someone who struggled to make it, made a lot of mistakes, and put it on view anyway as proof that it ended up tasting good despite the mishaps. I have now made this popular Sichuan dish enough times that I don’t make all those errors. But instead of updating and replacing that post, I’ve decided to leave it....

Chongqing Chicken

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / Poultry / Restaurant Classics / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Chongqing Chicken Like It’s Made in Chongqing

The Truth About Sichuan Food There vs. Here At last I’ve eaten Chongqing Chicken in Chongqing, and not only was it delicious, it was revelatory. This new recipe for the dish is based on the version I had there. It won’t be for everyone—a main ingredient is crispy fried chicken skin!—so I’m not replacing my previous recipe, which I created in 2015 based on memories of Chongqing chicken I had eaten in Chengdu, where it is known as laziji (chicken with chilies). I still like that version, but I want...

Tiger skin peppers

How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Douchi / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Plant

Tiger Skin Peppers (Hupi Qingjiao)

Chengdu Challenge #23: A Tiger on the Plate You can see in the photo above why this dish is called 虎皮青椒 (hǔpí qīngjiāo), or tiger skin peppers: The peppers are seared in the wok on both sides until the skin is puckered and striped with black char like a tiger. While this side dish is seriously delicious, it does not take itself too seriously. It is yet another example of a whimsical, poetic Chinese name for a fairly simple food. (The Chinese must find the tiger a whimsical animal, because...

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / Poultry / Restaurant Classics / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Chongqing Chicken With Chilies (Laziji, 辣子鸡)

Chengdu Challenge #17: Chongqing Hot Chicken Below is a photo of the very first plate of Chongqing chicken—sometimes called 辣子鸡 (làzǐjī), or just chicken with chilies—I ever had. It was in Chengdu in 2007, in a famous, upscale restaurant. When the server put it down on the table, my husband and I broke into nervous laughter as we saw chunks of fried chicken sitting under an avalanche of dried chili peppers. If we were sweating now, we thought, wait until we try to polish this dish off so as not...

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),...