Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
would use their helmets as a pot, cooking them up over a fire with broth, meat, ve-
getables and condiments.
The standout cuisine of the western school is fiery
Sichuan
(
chuancai
)
food, one of China's eight regional cooking styles, renowned for its eye-water-
ing peppery aromas. One of the herbs that differentiates Sichuan cooking from
other spicy cuisines is the use of 'flower pepper'
(huajiao),
a numbing
peppercorn-like herb that floods the mouth with an anaesthetising fragrance in
a culinary effect termed
mala
(numb and hot). The sweltering Chongqing hot-
pot is a force to be reckoned with but must be approached with a stiff upper lip
(and copious amounts of liquid refreshment).
Another of China's eight regional schools of cooking, dishes from
Hunan
(
xiangcai
) are similarly pungent, with a heavy reliance on chilli. Unlike Sichuan
food, flower pepper is not employed and instead spicy flavours are often
sharper and fiercer.
Dishes from the western school include the following:
gongbao jiding
spicy chicken with peanuts
shui zhu niurou
spicy fried and boiled beef
suancaiyu
sour cabbage fish soup
shuizhuyu
fried and boiled fish, garlic sprouts and celery
dandan mian
spicy noodles
huiguo rou
boiled and stirfried pork with salty and hot sauce
Chongqing huoguo
Chongqing hotpot
yu xiang rousi
fish-flavour pork strips
bangbang ji
shredded chicken in a hot pepper and sesame sauce
mala doufu
spicy tofu
Eastern School
The eastern school of Chinese cuisine belongs to a fecund region of China,
slashed by waterways and canals, dotted with lakes, fringed by a long coast-
line and nourished by a subtropical climate. Jiangsu province itself is the home
