Cathy2 wrote:You only made it four times and your satisfied. That is a speed record for you.

C2,

By no means do I think I've perfected Mapo Tofu, what I'm looking for is a general comfort level with the recipe so I can incorporate it into a multi dish Szechuan menu from Dunlop's "Land of Plenty" I plan on working through additional recipes with the goal of having a "Land of Plenty" based dinner party.

Cathy2 wrote:Just how many times did you make Miso soup before you hit eureka or was that your wife hitting the ceiling?

I made miso soup from scratch for over a year, was convinced, and still am, it is a very healthy way to start the day. Right about the 400th time I made miso soup for breakfast my wife said "if you make miso soup for breakfast one more time I will kill you." Maybe miso soup is not so healthy after all.

Enjoy,
Gary

Because of all the mapo tofu love in this thread, I took a trip to H-Mart after work to try it myself! Half an hour of prep, 15 minutes of intense wok work, and an incredibly smoky kitchen later, here’s what I came up with:


On the left is mapo tofu with pork. I took a tip from a recipe on recipezaar (supposedly inspired by Iron Chef Chen Kenichi…) and used two different bean pastes, doubanjan (chili bean paste) AND tenmienjan (brown bean paste), which gave it a nice, deep miso-y backing. All the other steps were basically the same as those above –- boil the cut up medium-firm tofu in salted water to firm it up a bit, stir fry, and finish with Sichuan peppercorn.

On the right is twice-cooked pork with leeks. Since I’m a cheater, and I didn’t want to wait on boiling pork belly for an hour, I started with some leftover sliced Filipino lechon -- which might actually make it thrice-cooked pork. The pork and leeks were stir-fried with doubanjan and hoisin, along the regular Chinese wok staples (soy, mirin, etc.).

The results? As often as I’ve tried to make “authentically Chinese” tasting food before, I’ve never really quite got there. Kung Pao, fried rice, everything ends up tasting very un-Chinese. These two dishes on the other hand were spot on, very Sichuanese, and probably could be served along their brethren at LSC. I think the difference this time was in using the bean pastes (thanks for the tip!) as well as a singing hot wok. Seriously, in the middle of frantically wokking the twice-cooked pork, I had to run and open up two outside doors for fear of setting off the apartment fire alarms and having to explain myself to Naperville FD.

What an excellent meal and learning experience. Thanks everyone for the suggestions and the inspiration.

mike

LTH,

Starting to work my way through "Land of Plenty" by Fuchsia Dunlop and, taking into account my limited and local to Chicago Sichuan exposure, find the recipes spot-on. Dry-Fry Chicken reminded me of Dry Chile Chicken at Lao Sze Chuan albeit with more complexity, lovely metallic Sichuan pepper mouth numb, layered chili heat and multiple dimension mouth feel as celery/scallion played off toasty textured almost leathery exterior of the chicken.

Dry-Fried Chicken

Ducks in a Row

Chicken, Sichuan chili bean paste, chili oil, celery, scallion, dry whole chilies, Sichuan pepper, dry sherry, soy sauce, sesame oil.


Lightly salt chicken, sizzle in hot oil until most of the water is gone.



Add chilies and Sichuan pepper, over lowered heat. 4-5 min



Add Sichuan chili bean paste, dry sherry, soy sauce and salt.



Cook over med-heat until chicken is dry and toasty. 10-15 minutes



Add celery, scallion, stir fry another couple of minutes until veg are tender. Finish with sesame oil.



Ready to serve





W/rice



Winner Winner Sichuan Chicken Dinner.

Enjoy,
Gary

Notes: Only small riff I made from Dunlop's recipe was adding a little of my home chili oil.

Looks mouth-watering good. Soaking up the drool now.

Come on, Gary!

Do you know what international shipping rates + book tariffs are going to cost me when I order this book?

When you receive and out-of-area phone call with a woman frantically screaming in Swedish, my wife's name is Jenny.

(Looks awesome and oh how I love to see some new cooking tutorials on LTH!)

LTH,

One last time on Mapo Tofu, and I do mean last time at least for a while as my bride has put her pretty well manicured foot down. "I don't want to see Mapo Tofu for at Least ten years". I figure I will give it a month.

In addition to Mapo Tofu I made, also from "Land of Plenty", Flowering Chives with Smoky Bacon. The essence of simplicity, stir fry bacon until crisp, add chives, dash of salt, finish with sesame oil. Turned out well, but next time I will cut the bacon a little finer.

Flowering Chives with Smoky Bacon.



Scallion pancake is a high return item, simple to make, huge flavor.

Scallion Pancake



Mapo Tofu w/Scallion pancake and Flowering Chives with Smoky Bacon



Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv, looks good, was wondering are you using a wok? if so any usage tips for that?

dudefella wrote:G Wiv, looks good, was wondering are you using a wok? if so any usage tips for that?

I use a well broken in carbon steel wok, which is what I would recommend, carbon steel that is. Best place to buy a wok in Chicagoland is Woks 'n' Things in Chinatown, a large selection of woks, wok accessory's and Chinese cleavers. I like the medium weight Dexter vegetable cleaver, a full size carbon steel cleaver.

Another terrific, incredible actually, store is The Wok Shop in San Francisco, the web site includes tip and hints on care and seasoning of the wok as well as products to purchase.

Enjoy,
Gary

Woks 'n' Things
2234 South Wentworth Avenue
Chicago, IL
312-842-0701

The Wok Shop
718 Grant Avenue
San Francisco CA 94108
415-989-3797

Come on, Gary!
Do you know what international shipping rates + book tariffs are going to cost me when I order this book?

Bridgestone -

Fuchsia Dunlop is British, and her cookbooks are widely available in Europe. Have you tried, say, Amazon UK? It's worth a try, I'd think.

sundevilpeg wrote:Bridgestone -

Fuchsia Dunlop is British, and her cookbooks are widely available in Europe. Have you tried, say, Amazon UK? It's worth a try, I'd think.

I hadn't even thought of checking with Swedish bookstores. Thanks for the tip! Looks like I can get a copy for a about 30 USD.

Thanks for introducing me to a new author, Gary and sundevilpeg!

There's an English version of "Land of Plenty" called "Sichuan Cookery" that is almost exactly the same thing--it just came out there first, and uses metric weights and whatnot.

I too love this book and have been cooking from it since reading an interview with her on the web--I will attach the post here: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/mighty ... chsia.html

Her recipes are amazing--we love the kung pao chicken--it is better than any restaurant in the city! Keep us posted on what else you make....

nancy wrote:Her recipes are amazing--we love the kung pao chicken--it is better than any restaurant in the city! Keep us posted on what else you make....

Nancy,

I made Kung Pao chicken from Land of Plenty last week, for a first effort I was pleased with the results. Couple of small operator errors, crowded the chicken in the wok, needed a finer mince on the ginger and next time out will add more garlic and, though it is not called for in the recipe, fermented black beans.

Kung Pao Chicken



Enjoy,
Gary

Bridgestone:

You're very welcome! Ms. Dunlop is a personal favorite of mine with respect to cookbook authors; her prose style is lovely and her research, impeccable. I'd like to recommend another book of hers, the follow-up to 'Land of Plenty,' which is called 'Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province.' It reads like a well-written novel, is beautifully photographed, and most importantly, is filled to bursting with absolutely authentic recipes from the region. Certain condiment preparations, like the salted chopped chiles (duo la jiao) may well become fixtures of your kitchen, as they have in mine.

Wow, you've all inspired me. Fuschia's Szechuan dry fried string beans (the non-vegetarian especially) are part of my regular week-night rotation. I've made the Kung Bao recipes a few times as well but I really haven't dug into this cookbook as much as I should.
Last night I made the Fish-fragrant pork (though I subbed green beans for bamboo shoots--I know, not even close, but that's what I had). I haven't had great luck finding the right pastes around Argyle. The Lee kum brand of Toban Djan is easy enough to find (but she derides this brand on her website). So, the last time I was at Tang Nam, I was sitting in the chile paste aisle comparing the Chinese characters on the Lee Kum label to other labels with no English. Then I just gave up, picked one with Chinese characters on the label and fava beans in the ingredient list. It tastes good but I'm not sure it's the right kind. I'll have to look around the next time I'm in Chinatown for a brand that's clearly from Pixian/Chengdu.

I need a couple more opportunites to use this cookbook: everything I've made tastes right, even if they're dishes I've never had in restaurants, or I've subbed-out vegetables.

It's a wonderfully clear cookbook that saves the obscure stuff (56 cooking techniques) for appendices, uses mostly easily available ingredients (although certain pastes and sauces are critical, they're not hard to find these days), and just plain gets the flavors that I've been missing when I'd tried to figure things out on my own.

I think I can put it down to at least two major items:
1) The use of vinegar -- tartness or sharpness is sadly missing from a lot of places that put a few sichuan dishes on their menus
2) Adding the garlic, chiles and ginger after cooking the meats (at least in the dishes I've experimented with), rather than using a sofrito-like sautee beforehand. While the flavors don't end up getting cooked into the meats, they also aren't cooking down and caramelizing, losing their bright, pungent notes.

thaiobsessed wrote:Wow, you've all inspired me. Fuschia's Szechuan dry fried string beans (the non-vegetarian especially) are part of my regular week-night rotation.

Just read the recipes and they moved high up my must try list. I've made Grace Young's version from "Breath of a Wok" both the vegetarian version, which is terrific room temp and travels well, and with pork.

Tonights "Land of Plenty" lineup was another round of Kung Pao chicken and Rabbit with Peanuts in Hot Bean Sauce, though I substituted chicken for rabbit as I had bought chicken for kung pao. 6 leg thigh quarters, boned out four for kung pao, simmered two with the boned bones for stock then made chicken w/peanuts in hot bean sauce with the leg/thigh meat. Considering I got a half-gallon of stock, an appetizer and main course rarely have I stretched, with such delicious results, an item so far.

Chicken with Peanuts in Hot Bean Sauce



Kung Pao Chicken with Peanuts

G Wiv wrote:finer mince on the ginger and next time out will add more garlic and, though it is not called for in the recipe, fermented black beans.

Finer dice moved ginger to supporting role, as it should be, black beans added depth and a little additional garlic bought the flavor from invisible to barely subtle. I still need more wok hay/wok char, I might start using my outdoor propane turkey fryer, which really pumps out the BTUs, for wok cookery.

Enjoy,
Gary

I really like the flowering chive with bacon recipe. Similar to the pork and green bean dish in that a little bit of pork transforms the dish (although I did add extra ground pork to this batch to make a more substantial dish).

Flowering chives


Dry fried string beans

Sweet & Sour Spare Ribs
"Land of Plenty" by Fuchsia Dunlop

A little chewy, slightly sweet, nice vinegar tang could have cooked the final glaze down a bit more. A definite do again both because it tasted good and to refine technique.

Sweet & Sour Spare Ribs

G Wiv wrote:Sweet & Sour Spare Ribs

You should try that glaze with some smoked tips.

stevez wrote:You should try that glaze with some smoked tips.

An excellent suggestion.

Wow, those ribs look great.

We made Kung Pao chicken this week. Very tasty...

G Wiv wrote:Sweet & Sour Spare Ribs
"Land of Plenty" by Fuchsia Dunlop

A little chewy, slightly sweet, nice vinegar tang could have cooked the final glaze down a bit more. A definite do again both because it tasted good and to refine technique.

Sweet & Sour Spare Ribs

Gary,

Those ribs look scrumptious!



Have you ever tried the "Sweet and Sour Spareribs" at LTH? It's one of my "have to get" dishes there along with my salt and pepper chicken wings. I prefer them to Sun Wah's "Garlic Fried Ribs", which are no slouch either. Small bits of crisp, lightly breaded fatty ribs with crunchy cartilage, and a very straightforward sweet and sour sauce. LTH also offers this as a small plate on their dim sum menu for about $3.25.

Made another batch of Gong Bao (Kung Pao) tonight. Variations: Multiplied by 1.5, added some red bell and carrot.

Mmm.

Evil Ronnie wrote:Have you ever tried the "Sweet and Sour Spareribs" at LTH? It's one of my "have to get" dishes there along with my salt and pepper chicken wings.

Evil,

I don't believe I've tried the sweet and sour spareribs at Little Three Happiness, an omission I will remedy next time there.

Thanks for the compliment on the S & S ribs, they were very good and, with a little technique refinement, will be even better.

Enjoy,
Gary

...with a little technique refinement, will be even better.

I'm sure that you'll nail it!

After reading this thread, I was totally unsatisfied with my lame chili sauce/la jiao jiang. Luckily, I had a chance to fix things. In the last two years a vigorous young Chinese community has built up around Concordia University here in Montréal. Foodies call it Montréal's New Chinatown, peopled by young immigrants, students at CU, other fellow-travellers, who are opening some of the best Asian restos in the city. In the basement below one of the hot new Sichuan places is a hole-in-the wall market, which today for the first time I ventured into. A very nice lady smiled generously at my broken Mandarin, and led me to her Sichuan pixian hot sauce: oh my!





A string-tied, paper-wrapped package of Pixian Douban hot sauce!

Inside, was a plastic sack filled with wonderful, rich, salty ["Ingredients: chili, broad beans, salt, wheat"] chili sauce:





Here's a closeup of the label:





"Sichuan Pixiandouban Co., Ltd" —looks (and tastes!) like the right thing.


Talk about a guy getting lucky....

Geo

I tried the dry-fried chicken the other night (no celery, blech). Great recipe.



Here is one of the chili paste I've been using--the one I like best.. The label is a little blurry. Ingredients include oil, chiles and broad beans. Not really sure if it's the "right" one but I like the flavor and it lists broad beans rather than soy...

Geo wrote:"Sichuan Pixiandouban Co., Ltd" —looks (and tastes!) like the right thing.

Certainly looks right, I have Pixian paste envy!

thaiobsessed wrote:Here is one of the chili paste I've been using--the one I like best.. The label is a little blurry. Ingredients include oil, chiles and broad beans. Not really sure if it's the "right" one but I like the flavor and it lists broad beans rather than soy...

Where did you get it, somewhere in Chicago I hope.

G Wiv wrote:Where did you get it, somewhere in Chicago I hope.

Yes, somewhere on Broadway (I've bought a bunch of pastes recently trying to find the right one). I'm pretty sure it was Broadway grocery (4879 N. Broadway) but it may have been Tai Nam (4925 N. Broadway).