Category: Plant

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

Kung Pao Lotus Root (Gongbao Oupian, 宫保藕片)

Chengdu Challenge #13: The Unbearable Easiness of Real Kung Pao Everybody knows kung pao chicken—called 宫保鸡丁 (gōngbǎo jīdīng) in China—but did you know that you can kung pao other foods as well? My personal favorite vegetable given the gongbao treatment is lotus root, a mild, crunchy, stunningly beautiful vehicle for the mala-meets-sweet-and-sour sauce adorned with home-fried peanuts. (Now, admittedly, fresh lotus root is somewhat difficult to find in the U.S. outside Asian markets, so feel free to substitute potatoes for an equally delicious if less photogenic dish using the exact same...

Plant / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Making Lajiaojiang (Hot Pickled Chili Sauce)

Perfect Pickled Pepper Sauce My 15-year-old daughter is a chili fiend. Just like her mom. Also just like me, in U.S. restaurants she bypasses the sriracha and goes straight for the sambal oelek. Made by the same folks (California’s Huy Fong Foods) that make Thai-style Rooster sriracha—America’s favorite Asian hot sauce—their Indonesian-style sambal is a thicker, purer chili experience. It is nothing but chili, salt and vinegar (plus preservatives and a thickener) and as such is close in taste to Sichuan’s pickled peppers, paolajiao, and a better match for Chinese food than...

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...

Bao & Dumplings / Non-Spicy / Plant / Restaurant Classics / Vegetarian

Steamed Bao (Foldover Buns, Guabao, 割包)

Chengdu Challenge #9: Bow to the Bao In my constant quest to fatten up my daughter without resorting to junk food, bao has been a go-to recipe. As a child who shuns all fried foods, most dairy and anything sweet, about the only fattening thing she loves is soft, yeasty bread. We discovered this at her first Thanksgiving dinner, when the only things she put on her plate were turkey and the Sister Schubert yeast rolls. She dug out the middle of the rolls, leaving the crusty exterior behind, and ate through...

Non-Spicy / Plant / Vegetarian

Technique for Stir-Frying Greens: Or How to Feed a Chinese Girl in America

Leftovers, Stir-Fried Greens and Rice “What should I eat?” is my daughter’s standard greeting. Not “Hi,” “Good morning” or “What’s up.” When she comes home from school, home from a friend’s or just out of her bedroom, she starts the conversation with “What should I eat?” The question has evolved with her grammar over the past three years as she learned English, from “Wǒ kěyǐ chī shénme?” to “Me eat what?” to “You have something to eat I like it?” and finally to perfect English. But the obsession with her next...

How to Cook With Dried Chilies / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Making Hongyou (Chili Oil Recipe, 红油)

 Facing Heaven in a Jar of Chili Oil Chili oil is a must-have ingredient for Sichuan cooking, and particularly for sauces that go on “cold dishes,” such as noodles and chicken, that are some of the cuisine’s most loved snacks and starters. It doesn’t make sense to buy your everyday chili oil (and for my family it is every day) when you can so easily make it yourself and control the type of oil, the quality and heat of chili flakes and the freshness. Just do a taste test of this...

Non-Spicy / Plant / Pork / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Pork, Green Pepper and Potato Stir-Fry (Qingjiao Tudou Rousi, 青椒土豆肉丝)

Chengdu Challenge #5: All-American Ingredients Make an All-Chinese Potato Stir-fry Yes, the potato is a Chinese vegetable! In fact, it is the star of this stir-fry, the main attraction, with the pork in a supporting role. In Sichuan you most often see potatoes cut in matchsticks and quickly stir-fried with a hit of vinegar. They’re just barely cooked, really, still crunchy and crisp, and as weird as that sounds to a Westerner, they are delicious. This recipe for a similarly prepared potato and pork stir-fry just fills it out with pork...

How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Plant / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Sichuan Yuxiang Eggplant (Yuxiang Qiezi, 鱼香茄子)

  Chengdu Challenge #3: ‘Fish-Fragrant’ Husband Treat This Sichuan classic is many people’s, including my husband, Craig’s, favorite Chinese dish. If dandan noodles was my aha moment—You mean this is what real Chinese food actually tastes like?—yuxiang eggplant was his. We first had it on our first trip to Chengdu, in 2007, where despite all the amazing pork-centric food we gorged on, this vegetable dish stood out for its luxurious texture and perfect sweet-sour-salty-bitter-umami balance. We’ve had it many times since, both in Sichuan and at home in the U.S.,...