Sichuan Banquet

Our good friends Rachelle and Sid came over for dinner last night and I made a Sichuan banquet.  On the menu was bang bang chicken, fish fragrance eggplant, cumin lamb with hand pulled noodles, red braised pork, cauliflower with bacon and smoked tofu, and water spinach with garlic and ginger.

Timing got a bit away from me.  The noodles were a huge time sink, but they were really delicious.  I wasn't so happy with the lamb visually, that may have been because I used ginger garlic paste instead of minced/grated aromatics...trying to save a bit of time here and there.  The picture on the website Omnivore's Cookbook looked so much better.  I used her recipe for the hand-pulled noodles as well.  Here is a link to that recipe from the Omnivore's Cookbook for hand pulled noodles.  

Cumin Lamb and Hand Pulled Noodles

The eggplant recipe can be found here.  It was the big crowd pleaser last night once again. My husband is not a big fan of eggplant, but he loves mushrooms, so I added a few king mushrooms that I sliced coated with cornstarch like the eggplant, and fried.

Fish Fragrance Eggplant and Mushroom

The big loser was the water spinach with ginger and garlic.  There are 2 types of water spinach, I used the thin leafed last night, there is a larger leaf that more resembles spinach leaves.  It may have been tastier with that type.  I found it was a bit stringy and difficult to manage chewing. Turns out I didn't get a photo of that. Just as well will probably not make that dish again.  Maybe sub in pea shoots instead of the water spinach.

I used a Fuchsia Dunlap recipe from "Land of Plenty", her food of sichuan book.  Her recipes are always really good. Cauliflower with smokey bacon recipe link.  I added smoked tofu to amp up the smokey flavor, not sure that concepts worked but it was a very tasty dish. I had a few asparagus spears hanging around that needed to be cooked, so I threw them in as well.  I blanched the veggies first and they cooked the bacon and tofu before adding the aromatics and vegetables.  A very satisfying dish.

Cauliflower with smokey bacon

I used another Fuchsia Dunlop recipe for the red braised pork one that usually uses beef.  I subbed in 2 pork shanks for the beef.  The dish turned out too salty and I am trying to figure out what caused the overload.  My first idea was the reduction in the liquid in the dutch oven over the cooking time.  What was almost 2 quarts of liquid at the start became about 1/2 deep pool at the end.  That is probably the reason it was so salty.  The flavor was good and in small quantities over rice it was very good.

Red cooked pork

The bones in the shanks just fell out and the skin came off in gelatinous sheets.  It was a very pretty and authentic looking dish.  Next time I will use unsalted stock.

Bang Bang Chicken is another Fuchsia Dunlop dish and it's served cold.  It consists poached chicken shredded by hand and a sesame based sauce.  I liked this dish.  The cold/room temp was a refreshing change from the fresh off the stove stuff.  I steamed chicken thighs, traditionally it is with breast meat, and after they cooled down a bit I shredded the meat discarding any remaining fat and unappetizing looking bits.  I stored the shredded meat in the fridge over night in about 1 cup of the steaming broth which was incredibly flavorful.  I got out the instant pot and put a steaming basket in and filled up to the basket with water.  I removed the basket and added 3 scallions, 2 big slices of ginger, a couple of sichuan peppers and 2 cloves of garlic.  I steamed them for 15 minutes on LOW pressure.  

Bang Bang Chicken

I urge you to read Fuchsia Dunlop's cookbooks they are truly amazing and every time I peruse through my copies I get jonesing to return to China and eat my way through difference provinces than when we were there for 3 months in 2016.  Not a bad meal was had over that time period.  We were the floor-show in a hot pot place in Chengdu because google translate was useless as all the items on the paper menu translated to something like "star and moon pieces" or "princess eating roses"  Not very helpful in terms of choosing what you want to dip into your bubbling broths. We ended up asking google to translate "chef's choices" and we got some very interesting bits of unidentifiable animal origin and bodily location.   All in all it was a very memorable experience and we still laugh about it 9 years on!

Best Ever "Fish Fragrance" Eggplant

This dish has no fish in it.  The name comes from the flavorings that are traditional used with fish in Chinese cooking.  It is a sichuan style recipe is often called Yu Xiang in restaurants.  This particular recipe comes from delish.com.  It is one of the best that I have used, bar none. 

The dish is simple, but if you don't cook Chinese food often you will need to get a lot of ingredients.  I was looking for a recipe that could use up the mountain of eggplants that my CSA gave me.  

Ingredients

3 Chinese eggplants, about 1.25 lbs, halved and cut into thick diagonal strips
2 t kosher salt

3 T cornstarch

Oil, divided

1 t ground sichuan peppercorns

6-12 dried sichuan chilis, stems/caps removed, cut in half and deseeded

1 T chopped pickled chili or sambal oelek or freshly sliced Thai chilis

3 T fermented chili bean paste, Pixian if possible

1 head of garlic minced, or equivalent cloves, divided

1 T minced ginger

1/2 t ground white pepper

3 green onions thinly sliced divided

1.5 T low sodium soy sauce (I used chinese light soy)

1.5 T rice wine vinegar

2 t Chinese Black vinegar

4 t granulated sugar (I used 3)

1/2 t MSG

1/2 c water or broth

2 t toasted sesame oil

Rice for serving

Method

1.  In a large bowl toss eggplant evenly with salt.  Let sit for 20-30 minutes, then gently squeeze out as much moisture as possible.  Drain and pat dry with paper towels.  Transfer to a dry bowl and then add cornstarch and toss to coat eggplant evenly.

2.  Heat a large skillet or wok over medium heat and add 2-3 T oil.  Heat until smoking.  Working in batches add some eggplant slices to the pan and fry until lightly brown on all sides, about 3-4 minutes.  Transfer to a clean bowl and set aside.  Finish the rest of the eggplant in the same manner.  Adding more oil if necessary.

3.  After frying the eggplant, remove the oil from the pan and add wipe with a wad of paper towels.  Heat pan again and add 2 T fresh oil to the pan.  After the oil is hot, add Sichuan ground pepper, chilis, bean paste, half the garlic, ginger, white pepper and half the green onions, stirring constantly until fragrant and the garlic is golden.  About 1 minute, do not burn.

4.  Return eggplant to pan, add soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, MSG, and water or broth.  I mixed all of these ingredients together in a single bowl ahead of time making sure that the sugar was dissolved.  Stir occasionally until the mixture thickens and becomes glossy, only a few minutes needed.  Stir in sesame oil, and remaining garlic and onions in final minute of cooking.  

5.  Serve with rice.

This dish was spicy but very well balanced.  There was the mala heat but it was tempered by that small amount of sugar and vinegar.  Absolutely delicious recipe and my thanks to the originator on delish.com,

I had a few strips of cucumber, onions, and carrots left over from a noodle dish the night before.  Perfect accompaniment.

I have made this subsequently from publishing here and I had a couple of red bell peppers that I stir fried with the ginger prior to adding the hot pepper paste and seasonings.  A welcome textural change.  I also had a ton of zucchinis that I treated exactly like the eggplant and it too was a lovely twist.  

Dateline: December 12, 2020 Indian Redux

 Our buddy, Servet, was coming over for dinner and tasting weird beers.  What goes with beer, Indian Food!  I made Achari Chicken, Aloo Gobi, and Baingan Bharta.  Recipes came from Urvashi Pitre.  

The Baingan Bharta is an eggplant stew that is cooked down until the eggplant has broken down completely and it is finished with a dash of cream.  I can't say that it was the best that I have ever eaten, but it certainly held its own.

The Aloo Gobi is a mixture of cauliflower and potatoes with indian spices and some tomatoes.  I was totally happy with how it turned out.

The Achari Chicken, is from Hydrabadwallah website and is an absolute favorite of mine.  A go to chicken dish that never fails to please.

Of course, as we were tasting interesting, and some not so interesting beers and hard seltzers, I only took a photo of the chicken dish.