The Mala Market | Inspiration & Ingredients for Sichuan Cooking Blog

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...

Twice-cooked pork (hui guo rou)

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

Chengdu Huiguorou, Twice-Cooked Pork (回锅肉)

Chengdu Challenge #8:  Pork Belly, The Secret to a Long Life Though 回锅肉 (huíguōròu) is actually quite easy to make, it challenged me more than any other dish so far. I had to test it so many times that “twice-cooked pork” became dozen-times-cooked pork before I got it right. But just as I did, I was rewarded with this news story about Sichuan’s oldest living resident, a 117-year-old woman who attributes her longevity to three meals a day of huiguorou. Pork belly and Pixian doubanjiang is really all it takes to make...

How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / Non-Spicy / Poultry / Soups & Stews

Chinese Golden Chicken Stew (Huangmenji, 黄焖鸡)

Chengdu Challenge #7: Caramel, Wine and Ginger Make Stew Sexy Recently we had a Chinese friend stay with us for a week who doesn’t eat spicy food. Not even a little. And this was a real challenge for me, since almost everything I make has at least a hint of spice. But we adapted that week and still ate well. I just had to call on all the dishes I make that aren’t spicy, starting with this one for Shoaxing wine and ginger chicken stew, more poetically called golden chicken stew, which...

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...

Beef, Lamb & Game / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Sichuan Hot and Spicy Beef (Xiangla Feiniu, 香辣肥牛)

Chengdu Challenge #6: A Spicy Beef Recipe With Heat and Technique “This is the only dish that’s spicy enough for girls’ night,” said my 15-year-old daughter, Fongchong, as she dove into Hot and Spicy Beef. She may be right. Though I’ll be working hard in this blog to disabuse readers of the notion that all Sichuan food is spicy, some dishes are indeed fiery. And out of all the spicy Sichuan dishes I regularly cook, this one is the spiciest. As a result, we generally save it for Wednesday nights,...

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...

Fish & Seafood / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Good-Luck Fish Head Recipe (Kaimenhong Yutou, 开门红鱼头)

Chengdu Challenge #4: Lucky in Fish, Unlucky in Friendship “I have a weird request for you,” I said to Hobo Mike, a commercial fisherman and the head fishmonger at my local Whole Foods.  “I need a giant fish head. No body. Just head.” “That’s not weird,” he replied. “Lots of people ask me for fish heads. I’ll put you on the waiting list.” “Cool,” I said. “But in that case, I’d like to place an order, because I don’t want just any old little snapper or salmon head. I need...

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.,...

How to Cook With Doubanjiang

Sourcing Pixian Doubanjiang (Fermented Chili Bean Paste, 豆瓣酱)

Pixian Doubanjiang: The Soul of Sichuan Cuisine If Sichuan pepper and chili pepper are the heart of Sichuan cuisine, then doubanjiang is the soul. The secret weapon in twice-cooked pork, mapo doufu, mala hot pot and scores of other Sichuan dishes, douban is little known outside China—and the authentic version is little known outside Sichuan. Asian cuisines have various fermented bean pastes/sauces, usually made with yellow or black soy beans. But Sichuan’s version, which comes from the county of Pixian, is made with dried fava beans, also known as broad beans, mixed with...

Cold Dishes / How to Cook With Huajiao / Poultry

Jiaomaji (椒麻鸡) Cold Chicken in Sichuan Pepper-Scallion Oil

Chengdu Challenge #2: The Magical Combo of Cold Chicken and Hot Peppers For the most part, chicken is chicken. But 椒麻鸡 (jiāomájī) sauce, now that’s a discovery! Jiaoma refers to Sichuan pepper, and the sauce is made by mixing the peppercorns together with a load of scallions and adding oil. Combine that with red-hot chili oil and Sichuan pepper oil and a little starter of cold chicken, jiaomaji, is the most exciting thing on the table. That’s what’s so brilliant about Sichuan cuisine. It has a million ways to make plain...