Cold spicy sweet tart nutty noodles from Sichuan

When the weather starts to heat up, I begin looking forward to making this super easy dish from the delicious province of Sichuan in central China. 

A land of muggy summers, Sichuan is the place where chili lovers make themselves sweat even more by consuming fiery foods. 

This might seem counter-intuitive, but it's all in tune with the thinking of traditional Chinese medicine, since this releases the pent-up heat in the body through perspiration, and so you feel cooler than before.

One such dish is called simply Cold Noodles and is nothing more than cooked, chilled noodles piled on top of blanched bean sprouts, topped with lots of veggies and either pressed bean curd or poached chicken strips, and then ornamented with lots of the spicy sauce known as "strange flavor" in Chinese.

It's all about balance

I don't know the origin of this name. Perhaps it is because it is an amalgam of every almost type of flavor there is: sweet, salty, sour, spicy, and nutty. You could throw some bitter in there and make it a home run, I guess, but I like it just the way it is.

This is another recipe that is open to interpretation, messing around, experimenting with. There really is no bad way to make cold noodles if you use good ingredients and make sure everything goes well with each other.

The classic ingredients here are -- in addition to the cold noodles -- blanched bean sprouts and shredded poached chicken. But even those are really subject to what you like and what you have in the fridge. 

Fresh mung bean sprouts

Here I've substituted baiye bean curd (like a softer pressed tofu) for the chicken to make a meatless version, and it was great. As for the veggies, just about anything is fine as long as it is refreshing and preferably slightly crunchy. If you can have some contrasting colors, so much the better.

Things like tomatoes wouldn't go very well in here because of their assertive flavor and soft texture. But shredded carrots, cucumbers, green onions, celery, sweet red peppers, and so forth get along quite well with the noodles and bean sprouts without overpowering all of the other flavors going on in the bowl.

Why blanched bean sprouts under the noodles? It may be hard to imagine just from the description, but they add a wonderful lightness to the noodles. Crisp and juicy, they mingle delightfully with the starchy yellow strands and add complexity and refreshment to each bite.

Assorted veggies and tofu

I've incorporated the Citrus Chili Oil with Black Beans in the previous post here, and it is amazing how much it adds to the flavors. The tiny bits of fermented black beans provide pungent, salty notes while the orange peel and ground chili tantalize the taste buds. Then, the sugar, vinegar, and soy sauce round out the nutty flavors of sesame oil and paste, while finely ground roasted Sichuan peppercorns tingle the nose.

Dishes like this make living in a hot, sweaty climate something worth enduring!

Cold noodles Sichuan style
Sichuan liangmian 四川涼麵
Sichuan cuisine
Serves 4 as a main dish

Noodles and toppings:
24 ounces (about 4 cups) | 700 g mung bean sprouts
Water, as needed
About 1 pound | 500 g fresh Chinese noodles of any kind
Around 1 cup | 125 g shredded poached chicken or julienned pressed bean curd
2 or 3 green onions, trimmed and shredded
2 Persian or other tender cucumbers and/or
1 carrot, shredded and/or half a sweet red pepper and/or 1 large stalk celery and/or
handful of blanched snow pea pods and/or any other vegetable you'd like here

Sauce:
10 to 12 tablespoons | 150 to 180 ml goop from the Citrus Chili Oil
6 to 8 tablespoons | 90 to 125 ml oil from the Citrus Chili Oil
4 tablespoons | 50 g sugar
4 tablespoons | 60 ml balsamic vinegar
6 tablespoons | 90 ml toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons regular soy sauce
2 tablespoons toasted sesame paste or peanut butter
2 teaspoons toasted ground Sichuan peppercorns

1. Blanch the bean sprouts by putting them in a 2-quart saucepan, covering them with water, and bringing the pot to a boil. The sprouts are ready when they have lost that "beany" flavor but are still crispy; do not overcook them. Immediately dump the pot into a colander place in the sink and run cold water over the bean sprouts to stop them from cooking any further. Drain and shake the sprouts in the colander to get rid of most of the water. Divide the cook sprouts among 4 large noodle bowls.

Loosen the noodles before boiling

2. Fill the saucepan halfway with water and bring it to a boil. While it is heating up, open the noodles and run your fingers through them to break up the clump. (I dump them in a big bowl if they are particularly knotted up and work the clumps loose.) Add the noodles to the boiling water in small handfuls, and stir the noodles as you add them. Stir occasionally until the water comes to a boil again, and then lower the heat to medium. The noodles will cook quickly, and you should start tasting them as soon as they rise to the surface. When they have cooked through but are still chewy, dump the water and noodles into the colander place in the sink and run water over the noodles until they are cool. Shake them dry and divide the noodles among the 4 bowls.

3. Shred or finely julienned the rest of the toppings and arrange them on top of the noodles in a decorative manner.

4. Mix the sauce ingredients together until smooth. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Pour an equal amount over each bowl and serve. Let your diners toss the noodles themselves.

Tips

Rinse the boiled noodles

Fresh noodles taste best here, but dried can be substituted if you like. 

Buy bean sprouts no more than a day before you want to use them, as they spoil quickly. They keep best in a container covered with water and stored in the refrigerator.

Use other chili oils if you like; just make sure that they are fresh and very flavorful, as they make or break this dish.

If your sesame paste or peanut butter is hard, microwave it to make it smooth.

To make toasted ground Sichuan peppercorns, follow the directions for Toasted Sichuan Peppercorn and Salt, but don't use the salt; just toast the peppercorns, grind finely, and sift to remove any hard pieces.

Cold spicy & numbing eggplant

If ever there was a non-Muslim dish that reminded me of the Middle East, it would be Sichuan's way with cold eggplant. Just as with baba ghanoush and other Levantine appetizers, these silken strands of beige vegetable matter are garnished with lots of oil and spices and inspiration, turning them into aromatic pillows that seem to float above the plate.

Dishes like these are meant to be savored as a prelude to dinner, as a suggestion of the cook's prowess, and as a hint of many good things to come. Eggplant is not beloved by too many people, and that is all right with me, because that means that there are just that much more of those amethysts beauties left for me.

Rabidly aromatic sauce

But I admit it, I too didn't care too much for eggplant when I was a kid. We almost never ate it except at Italian restaurants, and even then it served mainly as a transportation system for heavy breading, sour red sauces, and heavy layers of cheese. I could never taste the moist wafers underneath that heavy assault, but then again, I couldn't taste the chicken or the veal that was fixed that way, either.

Then Julia Child and ratatouille entered my life, and eggplant became a thing of beauty. And years later I went to Taiwan and realized that even more wondrous things could be done with this strange vegetable.

My favorite, though, has always been this simple dish. Unlike baba ghanoush, though, the eggplants here don't swim in oil. The secret lies in steaming them first, shredding them by hand, and only then lavishing a generous amount of scented oils and vibrant flavors on top. Eggplant by its very nature is bland and reticent, so it acts as the perfect canvas, the ultimate foil for the most explosive combinations.

Cold spicy & numbing eggplant 
Liángbàn qiézĭ 涼拌茄子

Sichuan
Serves 6 to 8 as an appetizer 

Fry the crunchy bits first

2 pounds Chinese eggplant (see Tips)

2 tablespoons Chili Pepper Oil

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tablespoon finely minced fresh ginger

1 tablespoon hot bean sauce (la doubanjiang)

1 teaspoon ground toasted Sichuan peppercorns

1 tablespoon regular soy sauce

1 tablespoon rice or apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

1 green onion, trimmed

1. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the skins of the eggplants. Trim off the caps and any bruises. Cut the eggplants crosswise into approximately 4-inch lengths, and if the eggplants are more than an inch wide, cut these in half lengthwise. 

A welcome beginning to dinner

2. Place the peeled eggplants in a steamer and steam over high heat until very tender; if you insert a chopstick into the thickest part, it should offer no more resistance than pudding. Remove the eggplants from the steamer, drain off any water and juices in a colander, and let them cool off until they can be easily handled. Tear the eggplants into thin strips along their natural grain and place them in a medium work bowl.

3. Heat the chili oil in a wok over medium-high until it shimmers, and then add the garlic, ginger, and spicy bean sauce. Stir these aromatics around for about 10 seconds to release their fragrance, and then add the ground toasted Sichuan peppercorns, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, and sesame oil. Quickly cook these only to remove the rawness of the sauces and dissolve the sugar, taste and adjust seasoning, and them pour these over the shredded eggplant. Finely slice the green onion and add it to the eggplant. Toss well, chill, and serve.

Tips

Chinese eggplants are a medium purple color and are longer than other varieties – some reaching over a food long – while Japanese ones are smaller and darker purple; Japanese eggplants can be used interchangeably with the Chinese ones in almost any recipe. Western globe eggplants, though, usually have more water and seeds, and so might be a bit texturally different in the final dish.

Long Chinese eggplant

Peeling the eggplant is what gives this dish its remarkable silkiness.

This dish can be made a couple of days ahead of time, and the flavors only improve. If you do make this ahead of time, add the green onions just before serving so that they retain their color and texture. The ginger and garlic, though, will offer tiny bits of crunch no matter when they get tossed in, and these contrast wonderfully with the glossy eggplant.

Make this dish as chili-laden and numbing as you wish. As given here, the dish is comfortably spicy.

Kung pao chicken

This is a dish that even most people who don't adore Chinese food tend to know and love. Kung Pao Chicken has been around for quite a while now here in the States -- at least from the Eighties, as far as I can remember -- so long that it's morphed into sort of a cliche in many restaurants. 

Some serve up really terrible versions that lack anything other than saltiness and peanuts, and that's too bad, because this is truly an inspired combination of sweet, sour, spice, heat, chicken, veggies, and -- yes -- peanuts. A signature dish of Sichuan province, this deserves some respect.

One place you can find it is in Fuchsia Dunlop's intensely wonderful Land of Plenty, which is not only a book of authentic Sichuan recipes, but also a memoir of her moving and (at times) quite funny months of being the first white woman to attend a cooking school in Chengdu. So, if you love Sichuan-style cooking, this is a great place to start.

Ground Sichuan peppercorns in marinade

Fuchsia has a lovely recipe for Kung Pao Chicken in her book, of course, and I adore it. Her version is all about the chicken, and she includes a story about how the story got its moniker: the dish was named after a late Qing dynasty governor of Sichuan called Ding Baozhen (as gongbao, or "kung pao," was his official title); he doted on this dish, so it got named after him. She goes on to relate the problems this caused the radicals during the Cultural Revolution, who renamed it until it was "rehabilitated" in the 1980s.

The story I heard was ever so slightly different. According to the food writer Huang Shaomo, Mr. Ding was the one who created this dish. (These names are particularly funny in Chinese because the title of this dish is Gongbao zhiding "Kung pao chicken cubes," and the creator's name is the name of this dish backwards, sort of: Ding Gongbao.) According to Mr. Huang, he used pretty much the same recipe for different main ingredients, so he had Kung Pao Lamb, Kung Pao Pork, Kung Pao Shrimp... you name it. 

But anyway, the variations on this story are probably as numerous as the recipes for this chicken dish. Fuchsia's version, like I said, focuses on the chicken, and other than the whites of some scallions, there really isn't a whole lot of vegetable matter in there. 

Plenty of veggies to add plenty of crunch

In my version, though, sweet red peppers and crunchy celery add all sorts of textural layers. This not only makes the dish quite colorful, but it also turns this into an ideal candidate for a one-dish supper: just pile the Kung Pao Chicken on top of a bowl of rice and settle down for a wonderful meal. Again, this is something that I personally like, and as with so many of these dishes, you too can play around with the ingredients to your heart's content until you find the balance that makes you smile.

I am not a huge fan, for example, of whole Sichuan peppercorns in stir-fries. These hard little nuggets tend to startle me out of my reveries whenever I bite down on them. So, what I've done is substitute ground toasted Sichuan peppercorns for the whole ones and add them to the marinade, and this adds just the right numbing edge for my taste. (But if you prefer them, well then, just add a teaspoon of the whole peppers to the chilies instead of the ground ones to the marinade.)

Also, I really love lots and lots of heat here, so I've doubled down on the dried chilies; they can be halved or reduced even further if you are not a chiliehead. If you prepare them the way that I suggest, you will find that they will soften and almost melt into the sauce as you work your way through the dish, which means that while you might start picking them out at the beginning, by dinner's end they will have slithered into the chicken and mellowed out.

One thing I suggest you do is to use kitchen shears or scissors to cut up the dried Thai chilies. This way, you can easily cut the chilies into small pieces without having them ricochet all over the kitchen. First, nip off the stem ends and then guillotine the chilies into half-inch sections. This loosens the seeds, which you can easily shake out the pods by lifting up the chilies and shaking them between your fingertips. 

An easy way with dried chilies

There's really nothing wrong with the seeds, if you prefer to keep them, of course. But I find that the seeds -- like the whole Sichuan peppercorns -- interfere with my enjoyment of a dish, so I dispense with them. This is all subjective, of course, and you should keep them in or toss them out as you see fit.

The final embellishment is fresh fried peanuts. Fuchsia talks about cashews as an elegant alternative, but I've never managed to get beyond peanuts. My peanut-loving husband would be very upset if anything ever derailed his chances for having peanuts for dinner, so there you have it. I imagine almonds and macadamia nuts might be splendid, too. But alas, I am destined to only speculate.

Kung pao chicken 
Gongbao jiding 宮保雞丁
Sichuan
Serves 2 as a main dish over rice, or 4 as part of a multicourse meal

Chicken:
12 ounces raw boneless chicken (boned and skinned thigh meat highly recommended; about 5 thighs)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons Shaoxing rice wine
1 teaspoon toasted ground Sichuan peppercorns
2 teaspoons cornstarch

Sauce:
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon balsamic (or other good dark) vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar

Fry the dried peppers

1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon cornstarch

The rest:
½ red bell (sweet) pepper
3 stalks celery
6 green onions
4 cloves garlic
½ inch fresh ginger, peeled and minced
5 to 15 dried Thai chilies (I prefer the maximum)
4 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
½ cup fried peanuts, unsalted

1. Rinse the chicken, pat it dry, and cut it into ½-inch dice. Place the chicken in a small work bowl with the soy sauce, rice wine, ground Sichuan peppercorns, and cornstarch. Toss them together and let the chicken marinate while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

2. Mix together the sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

3. Cut the red bell pepper and celery into ½-inch dice. Cut the whites of the green onions into ½-inch rounds, and cut the green sections of two of the onions into ½-inch pieces for garnish. Lightly smash the garlic and chop it finely; add it to the ginger. Use kitchen shears as directed above to cut the dried chilies into ½-inch pieces, discarding the stem ends and the seeds. 

4. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a wok over high and add the red bell pepper and celery to the wok. Quickly stir-fry them over high heat until the rawness is barely gone; remove them to the serving dish. 

5. Heat the rest of the oil in the wok over high and add the dried chili peppers; quickly fry them to release their aroma, about 10 seconds, and then add the garlic and ginger. Stir-fry these together for a few seconds and add the chicken. Stir-fry the chicken over high until the chicken turns white; add the whites of the onion. Continue to stir-fry the chicken until it is lightly browned and cooked through. Add the bell pepper and celery, toss, and then add the sauce. Quickly toss these together, and as soon as the sauce thickens, taste it and adjust the seasoning, and then add the peanuts and the green leaves of the onions. Serve immediately.

Cumin roasted potatoes from Sichuan

It's a firm culinary rule in China: the further west you go, the more you'll run into cumin. This is definitely not a spice that finds itself welcome anywhere on the eastern seaboard, where it is treated more as an oddity, a gustatory artifact of the less refined cuisines out in the hinterlands. 

But cumin is a spice that seems made for chilies, for garlic, for onions. Ask the Mexicans and the Indians, the Arabs and the people who live along the ancient Silk Roads, or any of the people who every day get to enjoy the enlightened cuisines in the Levant, and they'll tell you: these are what cumin was meant to be paired with.  

The really strange thing about this super simple dish is that all of the main ingredients came from somewhere other than China. Potatoes, the chilies, and the cumin all are foreigners. But, like the great Qing dynasty court painter Lang Shining, who was actually an Italian Jesuit named Giuseppe Castiglione, they became adopted by their new home with such great enthusiasm that they became Chinese by association.

A battery of aromatics

No matter where you go throughout the northwest or west, cumin winds its way into the foods with delicious abandon. It all makes perfect sense, of course, since cumin arrived in China via the spice merchants from the Middle East. 

The name for cumin, ziran, is so unfamiliar to most people in China that it doesn't even appear in many Chinese dictionaries. So, don't be confused if no one knows what you are talking about. Unless you are eating in the West or Southwest, of course.

Not to be confused with caraway (its close relative, along with fennel, anise, and parsley), cumin can be used whole or ground. I buy small amounts of it whole, as it stays fresher that way, and pulverize it in a spice grinder. 

When I really go on a Sichuan binge, I'll grind up a couple tablespoon's worth and store it in a little bottle. The seeds don't need to be toasted first, but as with so many warm spices, it doesn't hurt. Here, though, the spices will all be roasted together in the oven, so that saves an extra step. 

This is a lovely way to prepare new potatoes because they are first steamed thoroughly until they are soft and sweet. Then, they are tossed with some oil and the many aromatics before being baked. This extra step crisps up the skin and fluffs up the insides of the potatoes while infusing the oil with all the flavors of the spices and garlic and onions. A healthy dose of salt rounds out the flavors and keeps a nice, sharp edge to this dish.

Fingerling potatoes

If you are serving this with something salty or fried, use the lesser amount of salt. On the other hand, if you want to have these little potatoes as a bar snack or as a savory side for, say, steamed fish, then use more salt to add more punch. If you're not sure, use the lesser amount and provide extra salt at the table.

Now is the time of year to enjoy new potatoes. I used Fingerlings for this dish, as there was a fresh pile of them at the market the other day, and they looked so pink and good that I had to get them. When you buy new potatoes, try to get them more or less all the same size, as then you won't have to trim them. Pass over any that have a green cast to them, as these have been exposed to the sun and will be poisonous.

I never peel these little gems, but merely scrub them under running tap water with a soft brush to remove any grit in their folds. That really is about it. If you are buying them a couple of days ahead of time, don't wash them, but merely wrap them up in a brown paper bag and store them in the vegetable bin of your refrigerator. They should keep well that way for quite a few days.


Cumin roasted potatoes  
Ziran kao malingshu 孜然烤馬鈴薯
Sichuan
Serves 3 to 4 as a side dish

A generous pound of new potatoes (any variety)
3 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
1 green onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon roasted ground Sichuan peppercorns
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground chili powder
1 to 2 teaspoons sea salt (see note above)
1 green onion, finely chopped, for garnish
A few stalks cilantro for garnish, optional

1. Scrub the potatoes until clean. Steam them for around 15 minutes until tender.

2. Heat the oven (see Tips) to 350 degrees F. Place the potatoes on a small baking pan and toss them with the oil. Mix together the green onion, garlic, Sichuan peppercorns, cumin, chili powder, and salt, and sprinkle this over the potatoes. Roast the potatoes for 15 to 20 minutes until browned, tossing them occasionally as they cook.

Salt & spice & everything nice

3. Garnish the potatoes with the extra chopped green onion and optional cilantro. Serve hot.

Tips

A small toaster oven is great for this, as the size is perfect.

Use whatever ratio of spices and aromatics you like. Ginger is a good addition, and if you love chili, add more. Smoked paprika goes very well in the mix, as does extra garlic.