Sichuan Food in Chengdu, China

by james

What Chengdu must have looked like about 10 years ago…..

 

….and what it looks like now!

Sichuan food is renowned for being hot & spicy, seasoned with lots of chilli and Sichuan pepper. After visiting in the depths of winter it’s easy to believe the locals when they say they cook like this to counter the effects of the relentlessly grey, damp weather (apparently chilli heat is essential to ward off arthritis).  In the UK, ‘Sichuan’ tends to be used as a kind of shorthand for ‘spicy’ on Chinese menus and although lots of the food is pretty powerfully seasoned, it turns out not to be just one big sweatfest.

At some point during the Qing dynasty in the 16th century, starvation and war decimated the population of Sichuan province and thousands of immigrants were forcibly brought to the area from all over China. As well as their own cooking styles, these new arrivals bought the chilli with them (recently introduced to the coastal regions by European traders). It grew well in the rich agricultural land in the shadow of the Tibetan plateau, and in combination with the native Sichuan pepper became the foundation of a unique new cuisine.

chillies & fresh green Sichuan pepper – the 2 main flavours of modern Sichuan cooking

One of the key building blocks of Sichuan cooking is chilli bean paste. The story goes that on the journey these immigrants made to Sichuan, the fresh beans they bought with them started to ferment, so they mixed them with chilli to make it more palatable. It turned out to be so delicious that this fermented chilli bean paste was then used to give depth of flavour and heat to all sorts of dishes and is now a fundamental ingredient in Sichuan cooking. Whether the story’s true or not the chilli bean paste is definitely a favourite ingredient there now.

chilli-bean paste – the dark one in the foreground is 3 years old, the brighter red one in the background is fresh this year

To make the paste, broad beans are salted until they turn black and produce a rather sinister looking dark liquid that tastes like a cross between marmite and soy sauce. They’re then mixed with chopped chillies that have been salted for a couple of months and left together in huge ceramic jars for up to 5 years to dry, darken and intensify in flavour.

Every day the chilli bean paste is uncovered to the air, mashed up a bit and stirred until it’s ready to be used in all kinds of stir-fried dishes, soups, stews, braises, marinades etc etc.

me not impresssing the local boss with my chilli mashing technique

The most famous dish in Chengdu is hotpot – served as a pot of boiling stock in the centre of the table with various cuts of meat and vegetables to cook in it, a bit like a spicy fondue. The stock is made from pork bones (with a few secret additions), and it’s then flavoured with handfuls of chillies (fresh and dried), plus loads of whole Sichuan pepper when brought to the table to make a seriously fiery broth. Apparently groups of businessmen sometimes egg each other on to drink the broth after a long session on the local rice wine, but luckily I never got drunk enough to try that.

Assuming it wasn’t consumed by drunk businessmen, many restaurants strain the stock after each serving then use it over and over again as everything cooked in it just adds to the depth of flavour (some famous hotpot restaurants even boast of having base stocks that are many years old!).

 

ingredients for hotpot ready to be cooked in the broth – from the bottom left, mushrooms, pork intestines, more mushrooms, chicken gizzards, duck tongues, the gum/mouth lining from a pig, bamboo shoots, couple of different types of tripe and peashoots

The various ingredients are all very thinly sliced so only take a couple of minutes to cook and are then picked out and dressed with a mix of sesame oil, oyster sauce, MSG, chopped raw garlic and fresh coriander leaf (which I was suprised to see used there but it was all delicious together).

Sichuan pepper is also a key ingredient in the Lu master stocks which are used to cook all sorts of different cuts of meat. Soy, sugar and spices such as cassia, star anise, liquorice, mandarin peel, fennel seeds, black cardamon and chilli are all used in these stocks to get a deeply sweet-savoury flavour and a rich colour (although no-one seemed prepared to reveal their own secret recipe!)

Neighbourhood markets often have stalls with stockpots gently simmering away slowly cooking bits of pork, duck, chicken and various cuts of offal. The cooked meats are then sold to be taken home and either cut up and eaten cold, or roasted or fried.

The key seasonings of Sichuan as used in one of the street food stalls – soy sauce, raw garlic in water, chilli oil (made by infusing dried chilli flakes and Sichuan pepper in boiling hot oil), sugar, salt, MSG, roasted ground Sichuan pepper, sesame oil and a cooked soy sauce infused with star anise, cassia, bay, sugar and ginger

 

Even KFC has a special seasoning here – every meal comes with several packs of their special blend of chilli, salt, MSG and Sichuan pepper!

To be honest, Sichuan pepper is a really strange ingredient to use in cooking, whoever tried it first must have been a very brave man. It’s the berries of a very spiky, prickly ash tree and the flavour is a really heady mix of citrus and redcurrant with an amazing incense fragrance, an extraordinary metallic taste and powerful numbing effect in the mouth and on the lips. I heard a description of eating it as like licking the top of a battery, and that isn’t too far off.  The Chinese call this effect Ma La -spicy and numbing, and admittedly that does make it sound rather bizarre. Mixed with lots of dried chilli the effect can be explosive with your nose streaming and your mouth and lips numb, but it’s actually incredibly addictive. When you’re eating it you seem to keep finding yourself going back for more and more even as your nose runs and your heartbeat races

Stir-fried pork with lots of whole Sichuan pepper (both red -ripe berries, and green unripe ones), lots of dried chilli and whole fried garlic cloves

‘fish-flavoured’ aubergine, greens cooked with whole sichuan pepper and a slightly weird salad with a very sweet peanut sauce - the ‘fish flavour’ in the aubergine doesn’t actually mean it has a fishy taste, but just that it’s cooked with lots of ginger and chilli bean paste as fish would be

mapa dofu – fried tofu served with chilli-bean paste, a really powerful chilli oil and lots and lots (and lots) of freshly ground roasted Sichuan pepper.

gong bao chicken – really soft, sweet chicken pieces fried with lots of whole pieces of dried facing heaven chilli, peanuts and Sichuan pepper (it was only about halfway through that somebody pointed out you weren’t supposed to eat all the whole chillies…..!)

 

pickled chickens feet – I ate this so you don’t have to. Pretty sour, spicy and very bony……turns out there isn’t much meat on a chickens foot

 

 mmmm…. dried yak jerky 


Boiled strips of beef dressed with chilli-bean paste, dried chilli, raw garlic, chilli oil and lots of ground roasted Sichuan pepper. There tends to be lots of oil used in the seasoning of the  food but it isn’t all meant to be eaten – the oil just acts as a carrier of flavour

Many dishes include huge amounts of Sichuan pepper both whole and ground, plus fresh or dried chillies but these ingredients don’t always totally dominate. In fact much of the cooking is fairly subtle and the general use of spices is pretty restrained.

A Spicery in a neighbourhood market – they tend to stock whole dried chillies (including facing heaven chilli), chilli powder and flakes, star anise, cassia, fennel, sesame, black cardamon, perhaps some liquorice root, Chinese medicinal roots and herbs (always including whole bay leaves which was suprising) plus lots of Sichuan pepper – both red and green.

 You can try some Sichuan flavours in our Dan Dan noodles and Red Braised Pork recipe kits. We hope to give the tofu dish a try at some point and the Gong Bao chicken is coming your way soon!

A couple of favourite ‘Chinglish’ quotes from the hotel menu – it was a shame not to try the carbon roasted rabbit after all that unwearied effort but the flower carved baked chicken cooker was very good. Click here for some more classics on Engrish.com (current favourite is the ‘WELCOME TO COME AGAIN’ sign…..)

James

 

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Espelette and its special Pepper

by james

Espelette is a small village in the Basque region of south west France, near the Pyrenees. To be honest, the area doesn’t look particularly promising from a spice growing perspective, the picturesque rolling green hills reminded me a bit of Shropshire or Herefordshire. It’s tempting to say them thar hills conceal a spicy secret, but in truth the ‘secret’ is plastered over every available wall and road-sign in the region – this place is renowned for a very particular red chilli pepper grown there, piment d’espelette.

Basque people have historically been seafarers and great fisherman, and there’s evidence they were fishing for cod off Newfoundland way back in the 15th century (pre-Columbus). Either way, at some point over 400 years ago a basque seafarer brought back seeds from Mexico for a chilli plant (the real story seems to have been lost or forgotten somewhere along the way). It grew well in the area around Espelette and over time the locals managed to produce a unique pepper with a very particular flavour that everyone there came to love. It proved to be useful for its antibacterial properties (something it has in common with most chillies) and was used to help cure the hams and sausages that the local pig farmers produced, while the flavour was appreciated as a useful seasoning in the local cooking.

Apparently the particular microclimate in the area is perfect for growing this chilli – it’s hot in the summer but also very wet with regular rainfall and a high level of ground water (maybe due to its position between the mountains and the sea). This means that even in the height of summer when the temperature can top 30C, all around is still very green and verdant, and the chilli grows quite happily without any artificial watering or treatments. The mild climate means that the peppers are harvested all the way from August to December.

The piment itself is maybe 10cm long with a thick cylinder shape and a nice glossy red skin. When dried it looks a bit like the Mexican guajillo (which i suspect it may be related to originally) but has a much thinner skin and fewer seeds.

There are strict rules on how the chilli is dried (only by air, not artificial heat) so the fresh peppers are layered in open wooden crates to dry slowly under cover. The first thing that strikes you on walking into the drying rooms is that there’s no fierce chilli pungency in the air at all, only a subtle, slightly sweet hay-like scent.  The peppers are finished in a 50C oven for 36 hours to reduce the moisture content before being ground to maximum 5mm pieces and immediately vacuum sealed either in jars or pouches. The PDO regulations mean that piment d’espelette can only be sold in its original packaging, which is why we’re only able to offer the 250g size as its the smallest amount that’s packed in postable pouches, not in heavy glass jars.

The thing that’s unique and special about this pepper is that it has a very mild level of heat but none of the strong dried chilli scent and flavours you normally get. It has a soft texture without any tough skin or thick flesh. It’s tempting to say it’s a chilli for people who don’t like chilli, but it’s probably fairer to say its a chilli that’s been specifically bred for centuries to suit the European palate!

The powder has a really lovely scent reminiscent of dried tomato and a concentrated sweet red pepper flavour with very slight tangy and bitter notes. The nice thing about it is that you can use it for pretty much any purpose – it’s a delicate sophisticated flavour, ideal for seasoning European food where anything stronger would be in danger of overwhelming.

even the local Spar shop has chilli strings hanging up outside

All around the area are signs for for chilli producers and sellers, and many of the buildings have the strings of dried peppers hanging outside or inside. Everywhere you look are pictures or reminders of the chillies and it all feels rather daring and exotic in a European context, but actually the use of the pepper in the local cooking is really very timid. There’s a little sprinkle here and there. but it seems the delicate French palate would be too traumatised by too much being added!

The classic local dish is piperade – a stew of tomatoes, red, green and yellow peppers served with salty cured ham and fried or scrambled eggs. The flavour of the sweet peppers is important but so is a little pinch of piment d’espelette in the stew and at the end giving a very subtle bit of heat.

this is a brilliant video of Keith Floyd being told off by a local grandmother for making a terrible version of piperade (and to be fair, it does look pretty bad)…..

Other than that the dried peppers are often found in little dishes on the table in place of black pepper to season your food (most restaurants in the area seem to have little pots of the pepper on the table for you to season the food in place of peppermills). As far as I could tell there don’t seem to be any particular dishes where the flavour of the piment is central to the dish. If anything this may be because the flavours of the pepper are subtle and so can be used in virtually any dish in a similar way to black pepper. The best way to make the most of its delicate flavours are to use it as a seasoning at the end of cooking or at the table – add a little sprinkle of the flakes on pretty much anything just as you’d use black pepper. The whole dried peppers you see on the strings hung up on buildings in the region are better used in the cooking process where you can either add them whole to a soup or stew, or cut them into strips and add them at the start.

The area was awarded a PDO by the EU in 2000 meaning that only peppers grown in 7 villages can call their product piment d’espelette and in classic EU style there are a huge number of rules and regulations on how far apart the plants must be spaced, how much or little water they must be given during the growing season, when they’re picked, how they’re dried and processed and much more. The colour and heat level are carefully monitored and because of all this, the product is extremely consistent and high quality…… but of course all this attention to detail doesn’t come cheap! The final product is expensive but it is extremely high quality and gives a unique flavour that really suits European cooking – please give it a try here!

Many thanks to Martine in Cambo les Bains for showing me round and talking me through the growing process.

James

 

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