Cooking The Books

A Quick Lunch at Empress Sichuan

My first read through Fuchsia Dunlop's Sichuan Cuisine was a seminal moment in my life.  I'd always been a fan of Chinese food and here was something that was obviously Chinese but also so obviously different from anything I'd seen.  I'd had Kong Pao Chicken from English takeaways but nothing in this book resembled the sticky battered chicken and peanuts, just recipe after recipe of chillies, Sichuan pepper, oil and offal along with stories of however many different cutting methods and the careful balancing of hot, sour, salty and sweet - I literally couldn't find a recipe I didn't want to eat.  Within a couple of years I was travelling around China, eating my way through Chengdu and it's not stretching the truth to say how big a part that book played. 

Sichuan cookery (chuāncài/川菜) is now my favourite cuisine so you'd think I'd be lapping up the trend for Sichuan eateries in London.  Truth be told though I very rarely make it to any of them, I've eaten in Snazz Sichuan and love a quick bite in Baozi Inn but as far as meals out go I find it quite tricky to find people who fancy the onslaught of heat.  The one time I did manage to drag folk out (my birthday, the aforementioned Snazz Sichuan) I received a few unhappy texts the next day as people dealt with the morning after effects of bowls full of oil and chili, it's not been repeated.

  Today I had a bit of time on my hands at lunch though and a quick look in the newish Empress Sichuan window showed me a lunch menu I'd not noticed before. With lots of things sub £5 it looked perfect for a quick bite.  Being well versed in the art of solo Chinatown lunches I headed in and the first thing that hit me was how far removed from my usual Chinatown lunch this was.  No angry Wong Kei waiters and wipe clean tables here - mood lighting, racks of wine, tablecloths and, for some reason, rock and roll music and
memorabilia.  A cheerful waitress showed me to my booth but I declined the menu, having made my mind up the instant I saw the list outside.  There are few things in the world tastier than pig stomach (and when eating Sichuan it has to be offal) so 'noodles with pig stomach in a spicy sauce' was requested.  Wanting to test the kitchens with something I'd eaten in Chengdu, and made myself from Fuchsia, zhong dumplings with chili completed the order.

The noodles arrived, flat wheat noodles (no egg in the Sichuan style) bathed in a deep red glossy broth and speckled with the lumps of intestine.  Sichuan food is very hot and should make you sweat and the colour of this red liquor suggested it would do what it should.  The first mouthful let me know there wasn't going to be any sweating today though.  There was chili, sure, but in no great quantity, not something I would expect from any Sichuan food really, let alone something described as spicy.  Over my shoulder I heard another lone diner ask for chili sauce.  There really should be no need for that when eating this cuisine, the gf frequently cites not being able to eat for a week when we were in Chengdu and here folk were asking for extra chili.  Don't get me wrong, this was a gorgeous bowl of noodles - the noodles had just the right chew, the soup was rich and meaty with the smoky hint of sesame oil lingery on the palate, the pig intestine was flavoursome and cooked beautifully, melting in the mouth which such rubbery organs are not want to do.  It just didn't have much chili, I wasn't warm let alone sweating.

Next up were the zhong dumplings.  I'd had these a few times in Chengdu and each time you had the wonderful balance of fiery oil and almost bland pork filling.  Whilst these had more heat these were not the hottest zhong dumplings I've ever had, in fact they've not the hottest zhong dumplings I've had this week, the honour of that goes to a bowl I had in Cha Cha Moon at the weekend.  Heat or not though these blew the Cha Cha Moon portion away which, whilst flavoursome and chili hot, suffered from a heavy handed sauce, more reminsient of bang bang/strange flavoured sauce with far too much oil and the overwhelming flavour of sesame paste shining through.  This is before you've got on to the fact that they serve this sauce over won ton, crisp with water chestnut instead of the soft bite of a zhong dumpling.  Add to this Cha Cha Moon charge over £4 for 4 and here I got about 10 for £3.80 and there's no comparison.  Back to the sauce though and here it was delicious, oily too - as it should be - but balanced at the same time, hints of sesame oil and chili not overpowering the lightly flavoured pork filling, the whole thing lifted with the familiar citrus numbing of Sichuan pepper.  My lips tingled and I scoffed the lot down in record time but I still hadn't managed anything near a sweat.

So first impressions of this place are mixed.  The food is very tasty and the dining room a cut above most Chinatown restaurants.  I think most folk would go here and absolutely love it, in fact based upon this it's a Sichuan place I could easily take the gf too, assuming she's not still too haunted by Chengdu to step into anywhere bearing the region's name.  I'll be back myself too for lunch as it makes a lovely change from the Cantonese on offer everywhere else.  As a hardened Sichuan cuisine eater though I would liked to have seen a lot more chili, leaving wet around the collar and flushed of cheek, and I will return of an evening to see whether the main courses will let me achieve that goal.

Empress of Sichuan
6-7 Lisle St,
London
WC2H 7BG

Tian Shui Mian - The Recipe

This could be a landmark moment in the global spread of Sichuan cooking, the first English language tian shui mian recipe - maybe (I'm sure someone can prove me wrong). 

As mentioned previously tian shui mian managed to fight off stiff competition from about 600 other meals to make it into my top ten.  The bitter sweet sauce, hot chili and lip-numbing Sichuan pepper clinging to thick, chewy hand made noodles was almost too good for words.  If you've been to Baozi Inn then it's on the menu there although they call it something like Sweet and Spicy Noodles.  I've not eaten it though so can't comment on their version.

Loving it so much I obviously I wanted to recreate this meal so soon after getting back to Blighty I turned to Fuchsia Dunlop - whose books are my favourite Sichuan resource - but, alas, nothing.  Next up came Google but whilst it got me slightly warmer (the dish is mentioned on a couple of English language sites, incuding this site at number one) there was still no recipe.  Luckily I'd bought a couple of Chinese language Sichuan recipe books whilst travelling so dictionary in hand I waded through the indexes of them.  Still nothing.  At my wit's end I had the bright idea (even if I say so myself) to utilise the Chinese language pack installed on the PC, get the symbols in Google and search with them.  Bullseye!  Pages of recipes in Chinese, all I needed to do then was translate. 

Luckily for me the gf's cousin was over from Malaysia last weekend so I called upon his services and we flew through the ingredients, all bar one that is - red soy sauce.  This completely stumped both him and me but another symbol fueled Google search told us this was a sweetened, flavoured soy sauce (not the sweet bean paste I had guessed was in it when first tasting the dish).  They were also kind enough to provide a skeleton recipe.

Armed with this information and a couple of attempts to get it just right I can now present to you tian shui mian.  On top of being damn tasty it's got the added bonus of requiring you to make your own noodles which (ignoring pasta) was a first for me.  I wasn't sure of the gluten content of Chinese noodle flour so I decided to try a 50:50 mix of strong and plain flours on the first attempt, this worked perfectly so I'm sticking with it.

Tian Shui Mian, serves 4 people for a light meal

Noodles

200gr of plain white flour
200gr strong white flour
200gr water
1ts salt
Oil for rolling out

Sauce

65gr red soy sauce (see note below)
50gr chili oil, with sediment
1 TB sesame oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 ts chicken powder (optional)
10gr sesame paste, I used the dark Sichuan kind but you can use tahini too
2ts roasted and then crushed Sichuan pepper

Method

For the noodles combine the flours and the salt then add the water, stirring and kneading till all the flour has combined.  There's no need to knead till smooth like you would bread, at this point anyway.  Place in a bowl and cover, leaving for 30 minutes.

At this point remove the dough and give it a knead.  As the dough has had half an hour to hydrate it should knead easily, coming together in a smooth lump in little time at all.  Once smooth cover in clingfilm and leave while you put the sauce together.

Sauce

This couldn't be much simpler, once you've made the red soy sauce that is.

Combine everything except the Sichuan pepper in a bowl and stir until the sesame paste has broken up and all is combined

To Finish

Oil the dough, roll out to 5mm thick then cut into noodles 5mm to 10mm wide.  Dust well to avoid sticking.  Once they're all cut place into boiling water and cook until floating, probably 3 minutes.  Have a nibble on the end of one to check they're done.

Drain the noodles and split between four bowls, place a quarter of the sauce on top of each and then sprinkle with Sichuan pepper.

To Eat

Stir the noodles with your chopsticks till they're coated with the sauce and then enjoy.

Note: Red Soy Sauce

Ingredients

80ml light soy sauce
120gr molasses brown sugar
1 TB rice wine
1 star anise
1 5cm piece of cassia bark (Chinese cinnamon)
Small pinch of fennel seeds

Method

Mix it all up and simmer over a water bath for 15 minutes until slightly reduced and thickened.  Strain and cool.

The excess can be used for more tian shui mian (once will not be enough) or to dip dumplings in.

Sichuan Main Courses

Whilst I mainly ate xiao chi we did have the occasional main course over our 5 days in Chengdu.   I wasn't going to bother blogging these but Sichuan food seems popular so I will. 

Fish Fragrant Aubergine - this dish is one I've made at home, as have afew folk I know through food forums.  A deep frying turns the aubergine into melt in the mouth buttery goodness, the ubiquitous chili (through the umami laden fermented chili bean paste) turns it into one of the greatest aubergine dishes known to man.   I'd rather be writing about cooking it than eating it in a restaurant, helping out with a recipe, but as I'm stuck here I highly recommend Sunflower's recipe, go the whole hog and deep fry though.

Kong Pao Chicken - the coated chicken with masses of sauce of some English versions of this dish bear little resemblance to the real thing, which in typical Sichuan fashion had oil as an integral part of the dish, with a little sauce clinging to the juicy morsels of chicken.  The restaurant we ate this in took the liberty of toning it down for tourist tastes without asking us, much to my displeasure - it could have done with far more dried chillies.  Whilst I'm pointing folk to recipes I've had great success with this one.

Pig's Trotter with Seaweed - no idea if it's Sichuan food but I ate it in Sichuan.  Tender pig's trotter sat in a plain but meaty stock with such mouthfeel that you know it would have set to a firm jelly with the slightest drop in temperature.  Crunchy seaweed (the thick kind, no laver here) added some veg and welcome vitamins.

Cold Beef with Chili - in a quest to find the UK takeaway favourite shredded beef with chili's true form I came across this dish when a restaurant opposite Chengdu's very interesting Jinsha Museum said they had something similar.  Whilst not overly similar (it did contain beef and chili) it was Sichuan through and through, cold beef slices and crunchy vegetables (celery and spring onion) were coated in masses of ground dried chili and Sichuan pepper.  Reach for this tissues as this was hot, hot, hot.

Unknown Aubergine Dish - this strange one was grabbed from a table of dishes outside a restaurant, a popular method of displaying what's on offer in Chengdu eateries.  Cold, soft aubergine sat with sliced green chili, onion and garlic.  Hao chi (good eat i.e. tasty).

 

Shredded Beef with Chili (or gan bian niu rou) - this dish was finally tracked down and was surprisingly similar to the UK, even if there were some noticeable differences.  The batter was thinner, so less batter more beef.  There was a strong hint of Sichuan pepper, both in the beef's coating and as whole peppercorns in the sauce.  Said sauce was the main difference too, gone was the sweetness and stickiness relpaced with - you guessed it - oil, which had been turned red with the addition of some chili bean paste.  I made extensive notes on this dish so am hoping to recreate it whenever I choose to return home.

Suan La Tang (sour hot soup) - I wanted to track down hot and sour soup like I eat in the UK but couldn't find anything similar, although I know it exists over here.  I did end up with this fine dish though.   Egg and tomato soup (and scrambled egg with tomato) is eaten everywhere over here and this had been transformed to a sour and hot version with the addition of pickled green chilies, the chilies providing the hot and their vinegar providing the sour.  Very tasty and, I imagine, very easy to replicate even without a recipe.

That's it for Sichuan folks.  Seeing them all laid out in these few posts, and knowing I've not blogged everything I ate, I think I've done pretty well for just 5 days in province.  Bye bye Sichuan, you will be missed.

A Chengdu Market

There's been so many market posts on here I've run out of words to describe them.  It's easier just to look at the pictures.  I still can't get pictobrowser to work though so it'll have to be a link to flickr instead and one shot as a teaser.

Chengdu Market - Just South of People's Park

Sichuan Xiao Chi

It's a bit of a lengthy post this one.  The Chinese have a wonderful name for snacks 'xiao chi', or little eat, and Sichuan is famous for them, whether it's small bowls of noodles, dumplings, breads or fried things.  Here's a selection of the xiao chi I ate in my few days there.  It's nearly the end for Sichuan on here so fans of the cuisine should lap it up while they can.

Noodles

On top of the dan dan mian and tian shui mian I also had.

Cold rice noodles with vinegar - much like a salad dressing the black vinegar and chili oil really lifts the rice noodles, cucumber (quite nice in this dish) and torn tofu.  Available all over the place and a fine packed lunch for a train journey.