Category: How to Cook With Huajiao

Chinese New Year / Dessert / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Sesame / Non-Spicy / Vegetarian

Sichuan Pepper + Sesame Oil Fat-Washed Cocktail Recipes

Sichuan-Inspired Classic Cocktails Look no further than these Sichuan-inspired fat-washed cocktail recipes for a new way to step up your hosting game. With a little 藤椒油 (téngjiāoyóu) rattan pepper oil and toasted sesame oil, you can use fat-washing to infuse your drinks—I’m drawing on the martini, gin fizz and Manhattan—with an unexpected savory hit rivaling the experimental chops of your favorite bar. For home cooks and serious chefs, the intense payoff of tengjiaoyou/rattan pepper oil (a variety of green Sichuan pepper) creates a bright, citrusy, mildly electric buzz unlike any other...

Sichuan Steamed Pork Belly With Yacai

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Douchi / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / How to Cook With Yacai / Instant Pot-Friendly / Non-Spicy / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Sichuan Steamed Pork Belly ft. Yacai (Xianshaobai, 咸烧白)

Sichuan’s Ninth Great Bowl I rarely eat in my dreams. Even when I have been capable of lucid dreaming, I never recall eating. I do daydream, however—constantly—about the creamy, succulent slices of pork belly layered like so many perfect pleats across a steaming bed of Yibin yacai in traditional Sichuan 咸烧白 (xiánshāobái). Xianshaobai is a prayer sung in pork fat (too much lean meat and the magic disappears): classic, class-defying comfort food. No one is above xianshaobai. Xianshaobai is regional, like dumplings and 粽子 (zòngzi): The exact composition and style...

Chinese New Year / Fish & Seafood / How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / Plant / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Stovetop Chongqing Kaoyu (烤鱼): Wanzhou Grilled Fish

Pan-searing a Modern Chongqing Specialty I first ate Chongqing 烤鱼 (kǎoyú) in the underbelly of a Chengdu mall (real ones know it’s all about those random mall basement restaurants). That was back in 2015, and Chongqing’s explosive grilled fish scene has lingered in the back of my mind ever since. Buried between colorful layers of crunch, spice, fermented douban umami, fresh vegetables and sour paojiao, charcoal-grilled kaoyu takes the fiery flavor bomb of Sichuan hotpot and combines it with street food favorite 烧烤 (shāokǎo), Chinese barbecue. Naturally, Chongqing kaoyu is also known as 烧烤鱼...

Fish & Seafood / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / Plant / Restaurant Classics / Soups & Stews / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

One-Pot Weeknight Suancaiyu (酸菜鱼): Pickled Mustard-Green Fish Stew

Shortcut Suancaiyu When it comes to weeknight 酸菜鱼 (suāncàiyú), spicy and sour Sichuan fish (yu) with pickled mustard greens (suancai), even devout cooks need the occasional shortcut. Like most fish dishes on the mainland, suancaiyu uses whole fresh fish. And try as one might, Ma simply won’t be found buying, killing and gutting live fish on a Tuesday. Not that there’s much live fresh fish to be found around those parts—what suburbs have in 4-bedroom family homes, they lack in specialty fishmongers. So, we use fish fillets. No, it’s not the...

Chinese New Year / Cold Dishes / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Sesame / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Homestyle Suanni Bairou (蒜泥白肉): Sichuan Garlic Pork

A One-Night Homestyle Special Consider this classic Sichuan dish the next time you want to impress a table: 蒜泥白肉 (suànní báiròu), thinly sliced pork (“white meat”) smothered in a red-oil garlic-paste concoction. The hardest part of suanni bairou is slicing the meat, and even then, the tantalizing red oil dressing hides any number of shoddy knife-work sins. Balanced by the fresh crunch of raw cucumber—or my favorite, spring celtuce, pictured above—your guests will be too busy sopping up every last drop of sauce to notice how simple suanni bairou really...

sichuan chili oil liangmian in white porcelain dish with black backdrop

Chinese New Year / Cold Dishes / How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Sesame / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Noodles / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Ma’s Sichuan Liangmian (四川凉面) Spicy Cold Noodles

Ma’s Signature Potluck Dish If there’s one dish my mother is known for at potlucks, it’s spicy Sichuan 凉面 (liángmiàn), “cold noodles” in translation. The nature of this beloved 小吃 (xiǎochī) snack in Sichuan is such that everyone knows the dish on sight—and taste. Chewy but not sticky, springy and not slick, sour and spicy and cooling and fragrant all at once, a simple bowl of Sichuan liangmian makes my mouth water just thinking about it. If you host often, bringing nothing but cold noodles as your contribution to a...

How to Cook With Huajiao / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

How to Grind Sichuan Pepper (Huajiao, 花椒)

No Mala Without Huajiao Many recipes on this blog include ground 花椒 (huājiāo), Sichuan pepper, but the steps are so simple we’ve always included how to grind Sichuan pepper as a recipe note. Yet it’s worth taking extra care to get the most of our premium, single-origin Sichuan pepper offerings—from the gorgeous six-petaled, flower-shape “Da Hong Pao” to Hanyuan’s supremely potent and citrusy “Qingxi Gong Jiao,” famously collected by the emperor as tribute. When you’re using just-harvested huajiao from the tiny Sichuan village that is world capital of huajiao quality—with...

Bao & Dumplings / Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Huajiao / Non-Spicy / Plant / Pork / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Zuzu’s Savory Sichuan Zongzi (粽子)

Five Generations of Zongzi In the national Chinese battle of sweet vs. savory 粽子 (zòngzi), my family’s heirloom Sichuan zongzi recipe straddles a different border of savory. It’s nothing extravagant—six ingredients including rice, salt and oil. (A far cry from the mouthwatering cured egg yolk, meat-stuffed, nut-filled, mushroom-frequenting zongzi beloved in some savory southern regions). But one bite and anyone could guess its origin: Besides unassuming red bean and a touch of wind-cured pork belly, the sole flavoring is freshly ground 花椒 (huājiāo), the mouth-numbing and citrusy “Sichuan pepper.” Growing up sprinkling...

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Instant Pot-Friendly / Plant / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Pressure Cooker Sichuan Rice-Steamed Pork Ribs (Fenzhengrou, 粉蒸肉)

Taste of Lunar New Year Across South-Central China, just about every province cooks up some version of 粉蒸肉 (fěnzhēngròu), rice-steamed pork. In fenzhengrou, a special toasted rice powder coats the marinated pork before steaming and soaks up all the juices during. Despite originating in Jiangxi, Sichuan-style fenzhengrou with its Pixian doubanjiang base is arguably the most popular version today. Case in point: The China Cuisine Association named fenzhengrou one of Chongqing’s top 10 famous dishes and China’s 340 regional classic dishes in September 2018. Fenzheng dishes encompass rice-steamed beef, pork belly...

white dish with stirfried cabbage piled high

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Plant / Restaurant Classics / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Sichuan Hand-Torn Cabbage Stir-Fry (Shousi Baicai, 手撕白菜)

Cabbage and Huajiao, Happily Ever After This Sichuan Hand-Torn Cabbage Stir-Fry is a homestyle classic beloved in and out of Sichuan. It’s cheap, vegetarian, comes together in minutes and requires no special ingredients outside of a standard Chinese pantry. Plus, keep reading for an easy way to elevate this cabbage stir-fry into a Sichuan pepper (花椒, huājiāo) tasting experience! Cabbage gets a bad rap in the U.S., but Chinese people love cabbage. We even have an idiom extolling its virtues—百菜不如白菜 (bǎi cài bùrú báicài), meaning “a hundred vegetables are not...

Braises / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / 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 / Poultry / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Sichuan Braised Chicken with Chestnut + Shiitake (Banli Shaoji, 板栗烧鸡)

Cooking With Pixian Doubanjiang: Braised Chicken Sichuan braised chicken with chestnut and shiitake (板栗烧鸡, bǎnlì shāojī) in a dutch oven requires minimal babysitting for maximum flavor. Ma’s side of the family prepares shaoji with whole chicken and traditional taro obbligato, but this recipe combines bone-in chicken legs, roasted chestnuts and dried shiitake with the usual Pixian hongyou douban for everyday shaoji (within the hour!). The fact that we now call this dish “everyday” says it all. One godless fall day in her early youth, Mala Mama and her two older...

Sichuan cold rabbit

Beef, Lamb & Game / Cold Dishes / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Douchi / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Sesame / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Cooking with Pixian Doubanjiang: Erjie Tuding (二姐兔丁) Second Sister Rabbit Cubes

A Chengdu Hawker Original Chengdu’s famous Erjie Tuding is based off a Sichuan 凉拌 (liángbàn)/cold-dressed dish traditionally eaten in the fall. It belongs to our reader-favorite Cooking with Pixian Doubanjiang recipe series, which highlights Sichuan doubanjiang cooking methods that are less well-known than classics like Mapo Doufu and Twice-Cooked Pork. If you’ve never thought of using doubanjiang in a cold dish, this is your sign!  There are several variations of Sichuan’s cold-dressed rabbit (凉拌兔丁, liángbàn tùdīng; also 麻辣兔丁, málà tùdīng), but the most famous is Chengdu’s 二姐兔丁 (èrjiě tùdīng), “Second Sister Rabbit Cubes.”...