Beautiful & aromatic: fresh chili sauce from Zhejiang

Chili peppers are not usually associated with the cuisines along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, but now and then you will find spicy delights that increase in heat the further upriver you go. Anhui and Jiangxi, for example, have some pretty fiery dishes and more than their share of diehard chiliheads, and of course by the time you get the headwaters of the Yangtze, you are in pepper central: Sichuan.

However, out in the east in the delta area there is not much to be had in the way of chili peppers. The desire in such places as Jiangsu and Zhejiang tends more towards the subtle and the gentle. Dishes are generally seasoned with considerable restraint so that the natural flavors of the ingredients have the chance to shine.

Even so, chilies are welcome here as long as they are tamed. Usually showing up in condiments such as this sauce made from fresh peppers, the heat is turned down to an understated vibration, with fermented black beans, garlic, and green onions rounding out the flavors against a light oil base that restrains their raw natures even further. A short cooking both ensures that the sauce can be stored for weeks without molding and melds the various aromas together into a truly refined sauce.

 

Toss the chilies into the garlic & oil

I like to keep a small jar of this on the kitchen table to spark up simple dinners or breakfasts, and if I’m in a hurry or just don’t know what to eat, this beautiful red and black sauce comes to the rescue by turning even the blandest meal into a delight: smother hot eggs or rice or cooked cauliflower or bean curd or noodles with it, and then settle in for a very pleasing time.

But this is more than just a condiment, for it is a great way to pull together a fast dinner. Quickly stir-fry something like chopped chicken or sliced fish or shredded pork, and then toss in this sauce at the last minute. It couldn't be simpler.

Next week's post will show you some easy ways to prep your fresh chilies and garlic, so stay tuned!

Fresh chili sauce

Xīnxiān làjiāojiàng 新鮮辣椒醬

Zhejiang, Jiangsu

Makes 1½ cups

6 large red jalapeno peppers (6 to 7 ounces)

1 teaspoon sea salt

4 to 6 cloves garlic

And then add the black beans

¾ cup fermented black beans

¾ cup fresh peanut or vegetable oil

3 green onions, trimmed

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon sea salt, or to taste

1. Wash the peppers and pat them dry. Stem and seed them (see Tips), and then cut them into small (less than ¼-inch) dice. Place the peppers in a small colander, toss them with the 1 teaspoon salt, and let the extra liquid in the peppers leach out over the next hour or two; discard the liquid.

2. Peel and chop the garlic into pieces about the same size as the diced peppers. Rinse the beans in a colander, shake dry, and then coarsely chop them, into something along the same size as the garlic and peppers.

3. Pour the oil into a cool wok and add the garlic. Slowly fry the garlic in the oil over medium heat until it sizzles and smells wonderful, but has not yet browned. Add the chilies and stir these together, and then add the beans. Slowly fry these together for around 15 minutes, adjusting the heat as necessary to maintain little more than a gentle bubble in the oil.

The fast track to Nirvana

4. While the sauce is simmering away, cut each green onion lengthwise in half and then crosswise into pieces that are about the same size as the chilies. Add the green onions to the sauce after the 15 minutes are up, as well as the sugar. Stir and cook the sauce until the onions have wilted. Taste and adjust the seasoning with the salt, using more or less as needed. Refrigerate it in a glass jar.

Tips

Use other, fierier peppers here if you like this sauce hotter.                                                                                                         

You can leave the seeds in the peppers if you like them that way, but I prefer the smoothness of a seedless sauce, as well as the lack of bitterness that the seeds often provide.

Pickled red chilies: a taste of central China

Before I leave Guizhou's remarkable cuisines on my trip around the rest of the country's foods, I want to introduce one condiment that is both beautiful and delicious: south-central China's Pickled Red Chilies.

As with so many easily canned items, this condiment can often be found on a Chinese grocery shelf. And many of them are quite good. But none are as stunning -- or as tasty -- as the ones you can make yourself.

Now is the time when fresh red chilies are at their peak (at least around here), so I've put up a couple of jars which might be able to see me through to next summer. Why make your own if storebought are available? Well, if you have ever tasted homemade pickle chips or chutney, then you know the answer: flavor.

Fresh Thai chilies

When you have a jar of pickled whatever made from truly fresh ingredients, they taste a couple thousand times more wonderful than anything a commercial processor can make. Plus, you can pick exactly the ingredients you like, mix up aromatics that suit your palate, and play with the salt-sugar-vinegar ratios until the wheels come off.

And that's what I did. I was wandering around a really huge Chinese market in San Francisco's new Chinatown in the Richmond district, poking through the veggie displays and feeling very uninspired when I noticed net sacks full of Thai chilies. To call these chilies red is sort of an understatement. These were the true scarlet of fire engines, and I immediately knew what they were destined to become.

One thing that has tended to bother me about many commercial pickled chilies that they are so one-note. There's intense heat, of course, but not a whole lot of flavor other than that. So, what I did was add some Sichuan peppercorns for their fresh piney aroma, some star anise to bring a relatively undefinable spicy note to the brine, and then put some Chinese brown slab sugar in the mix to make this not completely sour, but more pleasant and aromatic.

The results are delicious... and gorgeous.

Chinese brown slab sugar

This is a truly simple recipe, one you can pretty much put together while watching an old movie or a ballgame. If you have sensitive skin, wear disposable gloves and resist the temptation to rub your face, as you will feel the pain for quite some time.

Plain old jars left over from something else can be used here. Just wash the jars and lids carefully, sterilize them in the dishwasher or with boiling water, and let them air dry.

The aromatics in here can be played with to your heart's content. This is just a guideline, and a loose one at that.

Like red fingertips

Pickled red chilies Guizhou style  
Qianshi pao honglajiao 黔式泡紅辣椒  
Guizhou
Makes about 1½ pints

8 to 10 ounces fresh (or frozen) red Thai or Serrano chilies

4 cups filtered water

1 piece slab brown sugar, or 2 ounces piloncillo or other light brown sugar

1½ ounces sea salt (about 7 ½ teaspoons)

2 whole star anise

1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns

1½ tablespoons white liquor (gaoliang, maotai, or any other high proof Chinese white liquor)

1. Clean and sterilize three half-pint jars and lids, or one 1-pint and one half-pint jar. Have 2 or 3 plastic spoons cleaned and ready. If you are sensitive to chilies, prepare a pair of disposable gloves to wear while you are working with the chilies.

2. Wash the chilies and pat dry. Remove the stem ends by pulling them off and trim away any less than perfect parts. Pack the chilies into the prepared jars so that they are vertical, with the cut sides up as much as possible (see Tips).

3. Pour the water into a very clean saucepan and add the sugar, salt, star anise, and Sichuan peppercorns. Bring the water to a boil, cover, lower the heat, and simmer until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Remove the pan from the heat and let the brine come to room temperature.

My humble invention

4. Pour the brine over the chilies, and distribute the whole spices more or less equally among the jars. (If you’re using three jars, do this by pulling some of the petals off of the star anise.) The chilies will float to the top of the jars, so to keep them submerged, hold a plastic spoon up against a bottle where it curves in toward the screws and then break the handle off so that it is a little bit longer than that area. Gently bend the handle and slip it into the jar so that it snaps open just below the curved area and thus holds down the chilies. If the spoon end fits into one of the jars, use that, too.

5. Pour a half tablespoon of the white liquor into each half-pint jar, or 1 tablespoon into the pint jar. Cover the jars loosely so that gases can escape, wipe clean the jars, and label them. Place the jars in a cool, dark place so that they can ferment. They will be ready as early as two weeks later, but they improve with age. Check the jars occasionally to ensure that the chilies remain submerged. If any mold happens to form, remove it, wipe down the inside of the jar with a paper towel dipped in white liquor, and add a bit more of the liquor to the jar.

6. When the chilies are just like you like them, store the jars in the fridge.

Tips

Fresh red chilies are best at the beginning of autumn when they have just been harvested, but they often are available at other times of the year. Check with your greengrocer or farmer’s market.

Frozen Thai chilies are often sold in Chinese markets, and can be of very good quality. Just defrost them and use them right away, since they will rot quickly if not processed.

Have a couple of plastic spoons at the ready the first time you try this method of holding down the chilies, as sometimes they break at awkward times. I’ve found that those without ridges along the edges are more flexible. Of course, forks, knives, and sporks can be used, too.

Doesn't get better than this

White liquor helps keep mold from forming and also flavors the chilies.

I have taken a bit of liberty with this recipe, adding Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, and sugar to the recipe, as I like the subtle flavor vibrations these cause. If you want more traditional pickled chilies, leave them out.

Other aromatics can be added, of course, in addition to or instead of what is already here. Ginger, garlic, black peppercorns… they all add nice layers.

Place the chilies with the pointy ends down so that any air or fermentation in the chilies will not be trapped, but will rather rise to the top of the jar.

Savory salt-and-pepper chicken

I've had Shanghai on my mind lately. Well, at least the food of Shanghai. If you've ever enjoyed some of the lovely things Shanghai has to eat, you'll understand.

Shanghai is one of those wonderful places in the world where tasty things just seem to migrate to, like New York, say, or Paris. It's at the mouth of the Yangtze River near the Pacific Ocean, so nature has conspired with man to move all of the best ingredients and clever cooking methods of central China down to this enormous maw where people who really know how to eat await their next meal with sophistication, as well as barely hidden anticipation.

In the grand scheme of Chinese cuisine, Shanghai's beautiful way with food usually gets crammed in with the cooking styles of glorious Jiangsu, the province in which it is situated, or under the general name of Yangzhou, a highly refined cuisine centered in northern Jiangsu. But although I can understand the urge to sort everything into tidy little compartments, Shanghai has a way of squirming its way insistently into a category all of its own.

Marinating chicken

You can't really blame it at all for this.

The thing is, Shanghai isn't just Jiangsu cuisine or Yangzhou cuisine. It's more of a pastiche of the best that China has to offer mixed in with flavors and ideas that sidled up to this great seaport over the past century or so and then squirreled their way into the culinary consciousness of some very happy diners.

Take ketchup, for example. Definitely not from around here, but when this foreign ingredient is used to deepen the flavors in the local sauces or provide an underlayer for a side dish, ketchup shuffles off its prosaic demeanor and reveals itself to be a really rich tomato sauce with a touch of piquancy that is just waiting to come alive when matched up with other tongue-pleasers like soy sauce, rice wine, garlic, and ginger.

Another illustration is the fresh chili pepper. Most folks understandably associate fresh and dried chilies with south-central China, the palate-searing dishes of Sichuan and Hunan down through Guizhou, Yunnan, Guangxi, and points south. It's hot and humid there, and anything that helps wake up the taste buds is going to find a warm welcome, especially chilies. 

But fresh and dried chilies are also used with moderation in Shanghai, and when they do, they make a delicious statement.

Frying the aromatics

Take this dish, for example. Salt-and-Pepper Chicken really dials back the usual suspects like soy sauce and Shaoxing rice wine, and starts out as a mild-mannered fried chicken dish. Then, a handful of chopped fresh chilies, garlic, green onions, and garlic team up with nothing more than salt to pack a flavor wallop. 

It's brilliant. All of these aromatics hit your mouth at the same time, and then you bite into the chicken and find temporary relief in the bland meat. Chew them together, and they form other flavors, the dusting of salt brushing up against the simple soy marinade hiding under the crispy batter, the garlic and chilies duking it out with each bite, and the garlic and green onions coming to a sort of herbal understanding just as you are about to swallow.

If you are at all familiar with Shanghainese food, you might have seen this in another incarnation, one that uses pork instead of chicken and called Jiaoyan paigu, or Salt-and-Pepper Pork Chops. And that is certainly good, but I've come to favor boneless chicken breasts here for their juiciness and for the back seat the chicken takes, acting more as a vehicle for all of the other flavors bouncing around on the plate than the main role.

Use whatever level heat you like here; I like red jalapeno chilies for their color and simple kick, but if you like a more herbal note, green peppers will do the trick. If you are adverse to heat or are feeding children, red bell peppers or pimentos work well; heat lovers can used something more pungent, like bird chilies or even habaneros. The garlic, too, can be adjust upwards or down to fit personal tastes and the menu.

Not your mother's fried chicken

I've suggested a minimum of salt here; taste the dish and add a dusting more if you think it needs it. And in case you're wondering, there's no black pepper here... just chili pepper!


Salt-and-pepper chicken 
Jiaoyan ji 椒鹽雞 
Shanghai
Serves 4 to 6 as part of a multicourse meal

2 boneless chicken breasts (see Tips)
2 tablespoons regular soy sauce
5 slices peeled fresh ginger
2 green onions, trimmed
1 red jalapeno chili, trimmed and seeded
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 large egg, beaten
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 to 2 cups peanut or vegetable oil (see Tips)
1 teaspoon sea salt

1. Rinse the chicken breasts and pat dry, and either leave the skin on or remove it, depending upon your taste. Cut the breasts into 1-inch cubes. Place them in a work bowl and toss with the soy sauce; allow them to marinate for about an hour. Drain the soy sauce off and discard.

2. Finely mince the ginger, green onions, chili, and garlic. 

3. Toss the chicken with the egg and then sprinkle the flour over the chicken. Mix them together to form a batter that even coats each piece of chicken.

4. Add enough oil to the wok so that you have at least a 2-inch depth. Heat the oil over high until a wooden chopstick inserted in the oil immediately bubbles all over. Add a few pieces of chicken at a time to the hot oil and fry them until golden all over; remove the fried chicken to a clean work bowl. Repeat with the rest of the chicken until all of the pieces are fried.

Fry the chicken to a golden brown

5. Pour off all of the oil, leaving just a slick of oil on the surface of the wok. Heat the wok over high again and add the salt to the wok. Quickly stir it around so that it starts to melt, and then toss in all of the ginger, green onions, chili, and garlic. Toss these for a few seconds to release their fragrance, and then add the fried chicken. Scoop and toss the chicken with the aromatics to coat each piece. Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed. Serve hot.

Tips

Use organic, free-range chicken, if at all possible. I like to keep the skin on the chicken, but skinless is good too. Other parts of the chicken are great here, such as the thighs; simply bone them before cutting the meat into cubes. 

If you decided to go with pork, cut boneless pork loin into batons about ½ x ½ x 1 inch in size so that the pork cooks quickly and stays juicy.

Used oil is fine here as long as it smells and tastes good. Use as much oil as you like for the deep frying, but only add a few pieces of chicken at a time to the hot fat so that it keeps a steady temperature and does not cool down too quickly.