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So I asked a buddy who was on business in Sichuan (spelling?) To bring me back some Sichuan pepper. He brought back a boatload of other spices as well, which a local colleague picked out as stuff worth having if you want to cook like they do. Now I have a load of spices with funny symbols on and only a vague idea of what they are, as said colleague speaks littleEnglish and couldn't provide translations. All I know is I have 2 kinds of Sichuan pepper and some spicy beef jerky and beef jerky candies. The rest is a mystery. Would it be OK to post pics of the labels and see if you guys can tell me what I have?
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Sep 11, 2016 20:28
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Yeah that's what I meant sorry, I'll do it tomorrow, I am still hung over from a wedding yesterday and can't think straight let alone take pics.
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Sep 11, 2016 21:57
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OK, here is what I was given. It would be great if you guys could identify some things so I can google them by their English names to figure out how to use them. Some of the things look familiar but except for the red and green Sichuan pepper I am not sure what the others are, though I have some idea what some could be, just by looking at the spice and smelling it. 1.  Red Sichuan pepper 2.  Green Sichuan Pepper 3.  Looks like Fennel to me 4.  Some kind of dried mushroom maybe? 5.  Some powdered spice 6.  Apparently this is a base for making hot pot? 7.  Looks kinda like bay leaves? 8.  This is apparently a mix of ground chili and spices? 9.  Looks almost like cinnamon bark to me 10.  A spicy paste is all I know. Has chilis in it by the look of it. 11.   This is a dead ringer for star aniseed imho 12.   Some sort of spicy paste, apparently my friend's colleagues took this into a restaurant and dipped their food in it? 13.  This one is easy, it is a blatant attempt at my life. If you have any idea, I'd be grateful if you could share it, as really I don't want to let any of this go to waste just because I don't know what it is.
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Sep 12, 2016 17:34
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My buddy knows I really like cooking (and he profits a lot in terms of dinners) , so when I merely asked for him to bring back "one pack of Sichuan pepper", he instead asked one of his Chinese colleagues over there, who regularly blows everyone at work away with his food, to go shopping with him. He even coerced a second colleague to come along and translate as number 1 spoke no English. So they went and the guy started picking things and happily babbling in Chinese, only a tenth of which got translated apparently. That's why I don't know what any of this is. But I am sure this stuff is great and useful.
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Sep 12, 2016 18:29
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Thank you, much appreciated. Now that I know what I have, I will see what I can cook with it. I already looked up Mapo Tofu and that seems doable, since I already have the rarest ingredient it seems!
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Sep 12, 2016 21:06
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caberham posted:Watch out for 4. It's actually super duper expensive and a lot of times people use other substitutes. Hence the word "花" or flower gets thrown around. This one: Cordyceps flower?
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Sep 14, 2016 11:21
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We went shopping on a market for locals on Samui and I simply looked at a range of 12 bubbling woks, pointed out 5 curries and bought them. None of that was too spicy. Apparently it varies by region, out of all the unknown things we bought at markets only one was extremely spicy. And talking out of my rear end, is it possible climate and other stuff also is a factor? One might not notice the spicyness so much when outside factors are different? No idea whether that is true but could be a small thing as well.
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Oct 26, 2016 11:05
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BTW I plan on making mapo tofu (plus maybe some other stuff) from the website linked earlier using all the stuff I was given, not sure when I get to do it but I will post a pic. Can the beef be added to the tofu when serving? Might have a vegetarian eating with us.
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Oct 26, 2016 11:25
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Tomorrow I will be making mapo tofu, Sichuan style stir fried beef, cauliflower and lotus root as well as cucumber salad and red potatoes from the page linked earlier. For 6 people. And I have no idea how this is supposed to taste but have a load of spices otherwise going to waste. This will be fun... slightly numbed, potentially way too spicy time-to-order-pizza-cause-nobody-can-eat-that fun. If it ends up halfway presentable I'll post pics.
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Nov 12, 2016 12:47
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I completely forgot to upload my pics of my attempt at using all the spices my friend got me from Sichuan. Thanks again for your help on identifying them. I invited some friends over and made 6 dishes for the expat lady's Sichuan cooking blog that was posted in here.  - Spicy Cucumber Salad (no seperate picture of this) - Mapo Tofu  - Sichuan-style Cauliflower  - Sichuan-style Potatoes  - Lotus Root  - Spicy Beef (medium hot)  and a more spicy version of it 
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Dec 14, 2016 11:02
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Thanks for the advice on the Cauliflower, I was working with a pan on an ceramic stovetop (I can't get a wok to work properly on my stove so I use a pan for more surface area.) and it didn't work too well. By the time I get it proper browned outside it would be mush on the inside. As for the spices... in Germany we don't really eat all that spicy and while some of my friends and eat more spicy simply due to our interest in exotic foods, I had to make a less spicy beef version for the other half of people. So for my purposes this stuff is plenty spicy. I'd wager my mother and plenty of her generation would not be able to eat it as is. Bit of a derail regrading spicy food in Germany: I am ashamed to say that in Germany the idea of "spicy" culminates in currywurst places that have 5 or more degrees of "hotness" in their sauces with the most spiciest being able to send you to hospital and "cool" people proving their manliness by eating this poo poo. The really sad part is that the spiciness usually comes form adding hotsauce or capsaicin extracts into the sauce to make it more "devilish" instead of reaching the spiciness through actually cooking chili peppers, which yields the spicy yet flavourful dishes you are sued to. Instead all these currywurst sauces have is that soulless vinegary taste of too much tabasco sauce. (Of course we also have Asian/Indian etc. restaurants that do proper spicy food, but in terms of original German dishes...not really.)
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Dec 14, 2016 11:34
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Well the main problem is your OCD ... j/k I know it is far from perfect but this was just a casual thing and my usual table cloth was in the washing. The dishes have cork mats underneath but the mapo tofu pan had a bright red plastic one which I covered up cause it stuck out like a sore thumb. And in Germany we don't use chopsticks. Honestly I can sort of handle them but we all are better of using knives and forks instead. Otherwise it would be a messy ordeal. So if I want people to enjoy their food, I make sure it is easy to eat. Hence no chopsticks. I had some but no one wanted any. At the end for the day, the food was well liked by all, which is what counts in my book.
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Dec 15, 2016 12:39
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Jose posted:how did you make that beef? I followed this recipe: http://www.chinasichuanfood.com/shredded-beef-szechuan-style/ I went to the butcher's and bought slices of beef ~0.5 cm thick unduly used to make beef olives (might be a UK term) which I then sliced into strips, that saves a lot of work in terms of meat slicing. Hopper fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Dec 17, 2016 |
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Dec 17, 2016 01:12
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DoubleCakes posted:The last few times I've attempted to make anything Chinese have ended in failure. At the very best I make a bland-tasting mush. I'm going to dial back a bit and make a simple dish of chicken and vegatables fried up in some sort of sauce (prolly sweet and sour) served over friend rice or some noodles. Any pointers or any recipes are welcome. Every single dish I made in that Sichuan spice test was super easy. The most challenging part was cutting all the ingredients, that took me a while. The rest was basically: Heat pan, add spices, wait, add meat//lotua root/cauliflower, stir, wait, serve. They all came out fine and I had no idea what I was going for as they were all unknown to me. Try one of them maybe.
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Dec 17, 2016 08:02
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THE MACHO MAN posted:I made mapo tofu for the first time. I will never have to order it again. This is great. I didn't do anything for redness, maybe it comes down to the doubanjing (spelling?) you use? Mine was the original stuff from Sichuan. As for the fermented beans (ask for fermented soy beans), I bought them in a little bag, they look like less wrinkyl raisins. The onyl size I could get was 200g sadly, which was way too much (I had to bin the rest out yesterday, as they had grown a bit of fur), if you can get as littel as possible, unless you use them a lot.
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Feb 1, 2017 13:00
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Yeah there is a cauliflower recipe on the Sichuan recipe website that was linked in here. I cooked it and it was well received.
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Feb 2, 2017 09:57
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Dunno, may have been accidental crosscontamination, had a white spotty plume on them.
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Feb 5, 2017 23:49
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Ahh that explains why the 2nd glass of "angry lady" I bought tasted more like "slightly miffed lady"... I bought the black bean variation instead of the pure chilly one by accident. The 1st glass I bought had no euro-friendly letters so I assumed there was only that kind and the one with mushrooms or chicken. The more you know...
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Mar 30, 2017 14:19
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Mapo Tofu
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May 21, 2017 14:24
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nervana posted:Can anybody give me a nice and easy mapo tofu recipe? I use this one: https://www.chinasichuanfood.com/mapo-tofu-recipe/ But I lack experience when it comes to chinese food, maybe someone knowledgeable could weigh in with their opinion on this one?
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Aug 1, 2018 08:13
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I have a somewhat odd question. I have an electric range so I haven't been using a wok in ages. However, I will build a balcony wok station this winter. It will basically be a modified kitchen cart with a wok burner and splatter guards on 3 sides. I have searched on the web and found that wok burners are a wide field of people obsessing over 15 kw gas burners that roar like a dragon... Since I'd like to keep my eyebrows and avoid torching my whole balcony, I want to start small. Do you guys have any recommendations for beginner suitable gas burners that provide enough heat to wok on a balcony? I was thinking maybe one of these can-based burners you get in every Asian shop might be a good practice opportunity, but am unsure whether it is hot enough.
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Sep 26, 2018 23:36
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Him I don't think turkey friers exist over here. I might have to buy a fancy Thai burner after all. Fun fact: they cost 35€ and then 85€ shipping. So I might have to wait for my buddy to go to Thailand in spring for work.
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Sep 26, 2018 23:49
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I need sone advice on wok seasoning. I bought a (European, not jet engine powerful) gas burner for use on my balcony and picked up a cheap round bottom steel wok and ladle at the Asian store, because apparently those are the best anyway. After scrubbig the wok down properly, I am supposed to burn away the rest of the protective layer of whatever is in there off and then season it with a high smoke point oil, so I was thinking peanut, sunflower or canola, as I have those on hand. However, I can't do this in the oven, because if it really smokes as much as people say, my neighbours would probably call the firefighters. So I intend to do it outside in my parents garden on the burner. But how am I supposed to get the upper inside seasoned if there is only heat from below? Is it okay to just season the inner bottom? Alternatively, I could try to wipe down the entire inside of the wok with oil and then stick it inside a gas BBQ upside down with the wooden handle sticking out under the BBQ lid. Would that work better? Or should I do something completely different?
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Apr 23, 2021 21:53
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Thanks, I'll try that. Not sure why I didn't think of that myself.. Edit: I seasoned the wok today. Used peanut oil and did 4 rounds of seasoning. It took a. while to rotate the wok on all sides to get an even seasoning but worked well. First cooking test was a success, doesn't stick. Scrubbing the thing down to get the protective layer off earlier was a chore though, first I used a steel wool scrubber and normal dishwashing liquid, then switched to a slightly more abrasive cleaner to be t It off properly. Very happy with the result, now my balcony wokstation is ready and I am looking forward to doing culinary trips to Asia, since we can't do real ones right now. Hopper fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Apr 25, 2021 |
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Apr 24, 2021 01:46
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I use a very cheap Aldi outdoor burner oft my Wok and it works fine for me. The not quite as hit flame actually helps because your stuff doesn't turn as fast. However as for cast iron woks, I would recommend to jsut go pick up a cheap, thin one at the Asian grocery store. The cast iron woks heat very evenly and you don't get the benefit of hit center cooler sides. For example if you make ginger scallion chicken, you can slide the browned ginger up the side before adding other stuff and it won't burn. This will not work with cast iron afaik.
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May 7, 2023 13:33
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Has anyone of you guys had a chance to look at Kenjis "The wok"? I am upgrading from a cheap and relatively weak aldi camping burner I use as a balcony wokstation to a proper thai burner (Kb5 super pan). So far I taught myself how to wok by watching school of wok recipe videos and just doing my thing. This has worked fine and I made pretty decent dishes, but with my new burner incoming I want to learn proper techniques and build some general wok knowledge. Is Kenjis book good for that? If not, which book would you recommend?
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Sep 13, 2023 23:56
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Eeyo posted:I thumbed through it a while back. I don’t think I made any of the recipes, I was mostly just picking through it for techniques, tips, and inspiration. Thank you, I was asked for gift ideas for myself, so I'll put it on the list, I tend to jump back and forth for what I need in books like this anyway, so rambly is fine. And I like his style anyway.
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Sep 17, 2023 21:56
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