Category: Vegetarian

assemble tomato egg noodle bowl

Non-Spicy / Noodles / Plant / Poultry / Vegetarian

Easy Tomato Egg Noodles ft. Dried Knife-Cut Noodles

Pan-China Comfort Food You may be familiar with the classic Chinese tomato egg stir-fry, but have you ever tried it with noodles? This kid-friendly dish uses just a handful of fresh ingredients, making it perfect for last-minute meals. In the olden days (that is, pre-pandemic price inflation), one could look to the fridge and invariably find at least one egg and a tomato ripe for sacrifice. With egg markups so high now, I’m far more selective about what I’ll crack an egg over. Bored quarantine baking = out. Quick, easy...

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...

Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Sichuan’s Pickled Chili Crisp (Zhalajiao, 渣辣椒)

      Taste of the Sichuan Countryside This recipe for 渣辣椒 (zhālàjiāo), or 渣海椒 (zhāhǎijiāo) in some areas, was a long time coming to our family dining table here in the United States. An all-purpose seasoning of fermented chili in cornmeal, zhalajiao (or “pickled chili crisp” as I’m calling it in English) can be stir-fried or steamed with any dish—and when pan-fried alone, the crispy accompaniment dresses up everything from plain white rice to 回锅肉 (huíguōròu). Mala Mama last tasted this traditional Sichuan dish in 1988, when my dad’s...

Sichuan pao cai naturally fermented pickles

Cold Dishes / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Sichuan’s Naturally Fermented Pickles (Paocai, 泡菜): Starting Your First Batch

A Lacto-Fermented Pantry: DIY Sichuan Pickles This paocai guide, originally published in September 2017, was updated in August 2021 with new photos and more guidance as we launched the mouth-blown Chinese pickle jar pictured above at The Mala Market. Have you ever tried making pickles without vinegar? There’s a bit of a learning curve involved in letting natural lacto-fermentation sour your vegetables instead of vinegar. But there’s also huge payoff for the effort. Not only in health benefits—fermentation creates good bacteria, or probiotics, that aid in digestion and vitamin absorption—but...

Crunchy Lotus Root Salad

Cold Dishes / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

No Sweet Sour: Crunchy Lotus Root Salad (Liangban Cui Ou, 凉拌脆藕)

From Yunnan, With Love I am thrilled to welcome Michelle Zhao of No Sweet Sour as a new contributor to this blog. Michelle grew up in Kunming, Yunnan, and now lives in Bergen, Norway, so she is intimately familiar with one of China’s most diverse and delicious cuisines as well as with the challenges of trying to prepare regional Chinese food outside China. I’ve been following her on Instagram for some time, where every photo makes me wish I was eating what she’s eating. I think you’ll feel the same,...

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...

Sichuan pickled peppers (pao la jiao)

Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Making Sichuan Pickled Peppers (Paojiao, 泡椒)

Our Pick for Pickled Peppers Many of you have asked us to source paojiao (泡椒, pàojiāo), the pickled hot peppers or pepper paste used in numerous Sichuan dishes. Some of you just want a lighter touch than doubanjiang, the funky Sichuan base sauce that is made from a combination of fermented chiles and broad beans and is the go-to for most dishes. And some of you are looking for a gluten-free alternative to doubanjiang, whose fermentation is kickstarted with wheat (as are almost all fermented Chinese sauces). Paojiao is used...

Sichuan sesame noodles

Cold Dishes / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Sesame / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Noodles / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Sichuan Sesame Noodles in “Strange Flavor” Sauce (Guaiweimian, 怪味面)

Sesame Paste—Not Tahini or Peanut Butter—For the Win “Strange flavor” truly is the strangest name for the super Sichuan sauce on these guaiweimian noodles. If I were naming it, it would be glorious flavor, or addictive flavor, or just best flavor, because it takes the standard sauce for Sichuan cold dishes—chili oil, Sichuan pepper, soy sauce, vinegar and garlic—and adds nutty, toasty Chinese sesame paste, hitting every note in the Sichuan flavor spectrum in one life-changing pantry sauce that can be thrown together in minutes. Despite what McDonald’s would have...

Suan La Fen (Sour and Spicy Sweet Potato Noodles) by The Mala Market

How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Noodles / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Chongqing Suanlafen (酸辣粉) Sour and Spicy Sweet Potato Noodles

Lameizi’s Noodles: A Spicy Girl Graduates Suanlafen, or sour and spicy soup with sweet potato noodles, always makes me think of Fongchong. We share a belief that spicy and sour, in that order, are the two best tastes, and nothing embodies those tastes better than suanlafen. Not only is it my daughter’s go-to soup in Sichuan restaurants, but one particular memory of her having it in her homeland always makes me smile, reminding me that my spicy girl (lameizi, as they’re known in Sichuan) knows her own mind and will always...

Cold Dishes / Non-Spicy / Noodles / Plant / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Sichuan Fava Bean and Radish Noodle Salad

Green Salad or Noodle Salad, You Choose After Jordan Porter wrote a piece for this blog about the bounty of Chengdu markets in the spring, I got to thinking about fava beans in a new way. I mean, I often think of fava beans, or broad beans as they are also known, since they are one of the main components of Pixian doubanjiang. They are the “bean” in that chili bean paste, and therefore the umami backbone of a great deal of Sichuan food. The broad beans in doubanjiang start...

How to Cook With Dried Chilies / Plant / Restaurants, Travel & Interviews / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Spicy Pickled Mustard Greens (Suancai) and the Food of Yunnan: A Q&A With Georgia Freedman

China’s Most Deliciously Diverse Province Have you noticed that there’s a new Chinese cuisine making waves in some larger American cities? Yunnan restaurants are popping up along the coasts, giving more people a chance to try the diverse dishes of the province for the first time. Home to hundreds of distinct ethnic minority groups, the food of Yunnan is a wondrous mix of Chinese and Southeast Asian influences—which alone gives you some idea of its great appeal. Fortunately for us cooks, a dedicated Yunnan cookbook has also just been published,...

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

Liangfen of Happy Tears (Shangxin Liangfen, 伤心凉粉) From NYC’s Málà Project

Great Sichuan Restaurant Recipes: Tears of Joy or Heartbreak?  A Controversial Jelly Noodle Have you ever been to a Sichuan restaurant and seen a bowl of something that looks like big fat noodles but on closer inspection is actually jiggly strands of jelly? Ranging from translucent to opaque white or yellow, they usually glow with a chili-oil sauce and fresh and crunchy garnishes. When you manage to capture these slippery guys with your chopsticks, they slither down your throat so easily. They are an enigma, at once hot and spicy...