Category: How to Cook With Soy Sauce

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...

Bao & Dumplings / Chinese New Year / East (Jiangnan, Shanghai) / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Non-Spicy / Plant

Changzhou’s Small Foot Zongzi (Xiaojiao Zongzi, 小脚粽子)

Duanwu Jie with a Taste of Jiangnan This Duanwu Jie, we are introducing two special zongzi stories: Changzhou’s small foot zongzi and Sichuan’s savory zongzi. You may sense a theme in our blog with this entry, because after starting it as a mother-daughter effort in 2014, we brought on Kathy Yuan and Mala Mama to contribute their family recipes from Sichuan in 2021 and are now welcoming Zoe Yang and her mom, Iris Zhao, to share their stories and recipes from Jiangnan—the area south of the Yangtze River, including Shanghai...

Cold Dishes / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Plant / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Wood Ear Salad ft. Pickled Chili (Liangban Mu’er, 凉拌木耳)

Introducing Cloud Ear Fungus~~ If I ever make a Chinese dinner spread with more than 4-5 dishes, 凉拌木耳 (liángbàn mù’ěr) wood ear salad is probably on the table. It’s served at room temperature, meaning I don’t need to time the cooking and plating. It’s fast to prepare on its own, so I can even get away with it as an afterthought. And it relies almost completely on shelf-stable pantry ingredients, so I always have them on hand. As a side dish, wood ear salad is sufficiently different to complement anything...

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...

Steak Chow Fun

Beef, Lamb & Game / How to Cook With Douchi / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Non-Spicy / Noodles / Restaurant Classics / South (Guangdong)

Cantonese Steak Chow Fun (Ft. Dried Ho Fun Noodles)

Chow Fun Any Place, Any Time The most important thing to know about this recipe is that unlike all other recipes for Cantonese beef chow fun, this one does not require you to make or find freshly steamed rice noodles. Instead it shows you how to make do with dried rice noodles. And in fact, more than make do, make something genuinely great. But first, a bit of why I, who cook almost exclusively Sichuan food for my spicy girl, am making Cantonese noodles. Spicy Sichuan dishes are Fongchong’s favorite,...

Xiaoguo Mixian

How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Noodles / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

No Sweet Sour: Yunnan Small Pot Rice Noodles (Xiaoguo Mixian, 小锅米线)

Yunnan Noodles, Far From Home Ask about the best-known Yunnan rice noodles across China, and many would nominate 过桥米线 (guòqiáo mǐxiàn), “crossing the bridge noodles.” However, for Yunnan locals, 小锅米线 (xiǎoguō mǐxiàn) or “small pot rice noodles” are no doubt the everyday staple. Xiaoguo mixian are hearty, down-to-earth, simple to prepare and available in almost every noodle shop.  Although xiaoguo mixian are a go-to breakfast for most people in Kunming, I prefer to eat it later as a comforting late-night meal. I learned to cook this dish from the noodle...

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.”...

Posu Bao

Bao & Dumplings / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Pork

No Sweet Sour: Yunnan Posubao (破酥包)

Yunnan’s Flaky Baozi~~ Iconic 破酥包 (pòsūbāo), literally translated as “crumbly bun,” is a unique steamed 包子 (bāozi) from Yunnan province. Its flaky layered skin is stuffed with either sweet or savory fillings. The origin tale dates back to 1903, when the pastry chef 赖八 (Lai Ba) of Yuxi invented posubao by adding lard to his baozi dough. The addition of lard made the wrapper cloud-like, with a loose and mouth-melting texture. Unlike neatly folded 小笼包 (xiǎolóngbāo), or soup dumplings, posubao has almost no folds. Instead, it has a fragile appearance,...

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / How to Cook With Tianmianjiang / Plant / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Cured Pork Belly Stir-fry (Chao Larou, 炒腊肉)

Once-Cooked Pork, Revisited This pork belly stir-fry pays homage to an old series on the blog, Cooking with Pixian Doubanjiang. Longtime readers may notice the similarity to “once-cooked pork” in Sichuan bean sauces. While that used bacon as a stand-in for Chinese cured pork belly (腊肉, làròu), this features the real deal—if you missed it, big news! Kathy has been teaching readers how to make their own Sichuan wind-cured pork belly. Last month, we presented seven ways to smoke, boil, steam and stir-fry the finished product. Now, we’re bringing you the eighth way....