The Mala Market | Inspiration & Ingredients for Sichuan Cooking Blog

Restaurants, Travel & Interviews

Chengdu Market Report: Spring in the Land of Abundance | Jordan Porter

Farmed and Foraged All talk of sensational spices—Sichuan pepper and mounds of chilis—aside, there are a lot of other factors that make Sichuan food very special. There’s the rambunctious, jovial air of celebration that turns meals into parties; there’s deep umami flavors and ferments brewing in every home; and there’s this great diversity of ingredients and techniques underneath it all. But to me, what makes Sichuan food really amazing is its focus on freshness and reliance on local ingredients, which is on ample view in a springtime Chengdu market. While...

Crispy Sichuan-Pepper Pulled Pork by The Mala Market

How to Cook With Huajiao / Non-Spicy / Pork / Sichuan Pantry Compatible

Sichuanish BBQ: Crispy Sichuan-Pepper Pulled Pork

Sichuan BBQ Pork Candy Here’s the extent of this Sichuan-ish BBQ recipe for crispy Sichuan-pepper pulled pork: Get a pork shoulder with a nice fat cap; score the fat in a diamond shape; rub the whole thing generously with kosher salt, sugar and freshly ground Sichuan pepper; put it in the oven at very low heat, and leave it there. Take it out many hours later, pull it apart with some forks, and marvel at its perfect mix of moist, tender meat and crispy, spicy fat. Really, there’s not much...

Braises / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Noodles / Poultry / Restaurant Classics

Xinjiang Big Plate Chicken (Dapanji, 大盘鸡) | Sarah Ting-Ting Hou

Big Plate, Big Flavors While dapanji is not a Sichuan dish, Big Plate Chicken, as it’s translated in English, is very much at home in Chengdu and has several ingredients in common with Sichuan stews and braises. It gets a bit of heat from Sichuan pepper and doubanjiang but also shows its Xinjiang roots by featuring smoky cumin and fat  wheat noodles.  This recipe was created by Sarah Ting-Ting Hou, a restaurant professional who moved from Beijing to Nashville a couple years ago. Like all Chinese-food lovers here, she has...

Beef, Lamb & Game / Braises / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Instant Pot-Friendly / Noodles / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Sichuan Red-Braised Beef Noodle Soup (Hongshao Niurou Mian, 红烧牛肉面) Using the Instant Pot (or Not)

The Chinese Instant Pot~~ The Sichuan version of China’s (and Taiwan’s) beloved red-braised-beef noodle soup (hongshao niurou mian) is—you guessed it!—spicy hot with the addition of Pixian doubanjiang (chili bean paste), Sichuan pepper and chili oil. So you know it’s the best version! (Says an avowed lover of spicy.) In my quest for the perfect bowl of niurou mian, I’ve had two major decisions to make: Should all the major seasonings be cooked into the broth OR should some of them be added to the serving bowl instead right before...

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / Non-Spicy / Plant

Itty Bitty Baby Bok Choy in Vinegar-Oyster Sauce

Gilded Bok Choy So I made some itty bitty baby bok choy stir-fried with loads of garlic and drizzled with Zhenjiang vinegar, oyster sauce and soy sauce for dinner not long ago. Before we pounced on it, I took a throwaway (neither styled nor lighted) photo of it and later posted it to Instagram. Whereupon, everyone else seemed to want to pounce on it. It reminded me that to most of us, even those of us who are avid meat eaters, there’s nothing more enticing than a plate of well-cooked...

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / How to Cook With Tianmianjiang / Pork

Sichuan Spareribs With Mala BBQ Sauce (Mala Paigu): Cooking With Grace Young

Happy Year of the Pig! I can’t help myself each year from trying to match a recipe with the Chinese New Year animal. Some years are a stretch—dragon, monkey—but pig, the meat supreme of China, has to be the easiest. Chinese spareribs are a pork dish I’ve never tackled, so I went whole hog, calling on Chinese food authority Grace Young for some guidance on Chinese BBQ and making oven-roasted Sichuan spareribs two distinct ways. We have Grace to thank for this wet-rub rib based on Cantonese barbecue spareribs. She...

Yunnan clay pot mixian

Noodles / Plant / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Shaguo Mixian (砂锅米线) Yunnan Clay Pot Rice Noodles with Pork and Spicy Pickled Greens

The Magic of Mixian In my personal pantheon of noodles, Yunnan mixian ranks up there pretty high. There are two main reasons for this: rice noodles and pickles. Since my discovery of pho a couple decades ago, I’ve preferred my soups with rice noodles vs wheat, mainly because of their springy texture and lightness. But when you take a soup that does in fact resemble pho (Yunnan borders Vietnam, after all, and food traditions don’t respect borders) and add spicy pickled mustard greens to it, along with fresh greens, a...

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,...

Sichuan Sauce for Grilling from The Mala Market

Beef, Lamb & Game / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / Pork / Poultry

Cooking With Pixian Doubanjiang: Sichuan Sauce for Grilling & Roasting

A New ‘Cue I’m not sure why I’d never thought before to add Pixian chili bean paste to my grilling marinade, because it’s a match made in BBQ heaven. Douban is a combination of salt, spice and umami (in the form of fermented fava beans). Meat loves salt, most people reading this love spice, and everyone loves umami, so douban ticks all the boxes. It’s a BBQ sauce like you’ve never had before, but it doesn’t hit you over the head with any of those sensations, enhancing the meat without...

Beef, Lamb & Game / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / Poultry / Sichuan Pantry Compatible

Cooking With Pixian Doubanjiang: Sichuan Sauce for Stir-Fry

A Quick-Mix, Good-With-Everything Sichuan Sauce After we launched a famous brand of handmade, 3-year-aged, Pixian chili bean paste into the U.S. market in August, many, many of you reported back that you love its spicy and soulful flavor. But after making the best mapo doufu you’ve ever made, and perhaps a stellar twice-cooked pork, some of you are stumped for further ways to use it. So I’m embarking on a series called Cooking With Pixian Doubanjiang that will hopefully make it easier to utilize this super versatile burst of umami....

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...

Cold Dishes / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Plant / Restaurants, Travel & Interviews / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Roasted Chili Eggplant (Liangban Qiezi, 凉拌茄子) from Chengdu’s Ying Garden

Great Sichuan Restaurant Recipes: Green Food vs. Red Food When people think of Sichuan food, they think of red. The three ingredients most identified with the cuisine—red chilies, red Sichuan peppercorns and red chili bean paste—present a united front of red in the bowl or plate when they are all in use. But what the West tends to forget is that Sichuan has some magnificent green food. Not just green leafy vegetables, which make up the majority of any full meal, but green chilies, green Sichuan pepper, green onions and...