(exciting music)
- For anyone who doesn't know,
Fuchsia is one of the foremost
English language authorities on Chinese cooking.
- So, I went to study in Sichuan in 1994,
and completely fell in love with the cuisine,
and then I ended up becoming the first westerner
to train at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine.
They say, "shi zai Zhongguo, wei zai Sichuan"
which means, China is the place for food,
and Sichuan is the place for flavor.
Really, from a Sichuanese point of view,
the great thing about Sichuanese cuisine
is this mastery of the mixing of flavors.
- We're gonna do the thing that probably
most folks think of when they think of Sichuan food,
which is a málà-flavored dish.
Is that even the right way to say that?
- Yeah málà, numbing and hot.
The base of the sauce is the Sichuan chili bean paste,
that lovely beany, savory flavor.
But, we're going to finish the dish with hot oil,
spicy chili, and tingly Sichuan pepper.
So, here we have some dried chilies.
There are lots of different kinds,
but in general, the Sichuanese favor dried chilies
that are not overpoweringly hot,
but have a lovely aromatic quality.
And the other great spice of course, is Sichuan pepper.
- It's got that numbing, it's not quite spicy.
It's something else. - Yeah.
There's a special word for that sensation in Chinese,
and it's má, which means, it's the same word
as pins and needles in anesthesia.
- Mm. (Fuchsia laughing)
- So, that'll really make your lips sing and tingle.
So, this dish Shuizhu Niurou,
literally means water-boiled beef.
- Okay. - And the joke is that it
sounds very mild and innocuous, and it's really quite spicy.
And this is a very typical Sichuanese dish,
and it's actually from Zigong,
which is a town in southern Sichuan,
which is famous for its salt industry.
Because the machinery that drew up
the salty brine from the Earth was worked by oxen,
they had all these cattle.
They had some dishes using these working,
- The retired oxen. (both laughing)
- Yeah, exactly.
So, I'm going to start by preparing the peiliao,
the accompanying ingredient, which is some nice,
brisk, crunchy Chinese cabbage and celery,
and these are going to be on the base of the dish.
We just want a nice, crunchy, refreshing contrast
to the rich sauce and the silky beef.
And now I'm going to just cut up
a little bit of ginger and garlic.
And in Chinese, there are words for every shape
to which you cut your ingredients,
some of them are quite poetic.
So, in this case, I'm cutting the ginger
and garlic into "mili" ⁠- rice grains.
(knife clanking)
The traditional way of doing this,
is by making what they call "daokou haijiao,"
which means knife-mouth chilies.
So, we're going to lightly fry some chilies
with Sichuan pepper and then chop them,
and then finally sort of sprinkle
them over the top of the dish.
- And when these are fried, are they,
and sprinkled on top, they're truly meant to be eaten,
or are they kind of imbuing the dish
with a fragrance and flavor but you don't
literally eat the dried chili?
- Oh, well they will be chopped up.
And they will be a sprinkling so you can eat them.
- Got it. - But they might be
a little bit hot.
I'm now going to put in the chilies.
You don't want to burn them, you want to get them
a little bit crisp, and so it's a little delicate matter.
When the chilies start darkening
and getting a bit sizzly, I'm now
putting in the Sichuan pepper.
Smell amazing, right?
- Yeah. - And we're going to use
that oil also, for frying the vegetables.
Okay, so that's about as far am I'm gonna go.
So, this is going to give us that
málà, numbing and hot flavor.
And this knife, you can see, is so versatile.
So, apart from cutting, it's also perfect
for scooping things off the board, for smacking things.
I think that in western eyes, a cleaver is obviously,
is often a sort of violent, heavy butcher's knife.
- This thing, yeah. - Yeah, like that.
And then by contrast, this is a Chinese piandao or caidao,
vegetable knife, or slicing cleaver.
And so, it's much lighter and thinner.
This will do almost everything in the Chinese kitchen.
So now, I just want to prep up the beef.
So, I'm going to slice the beef quite thinly.
- And that kind of, that very short back and forth motion
is just helping you get a nice,
- Thin, yeah... - Thin slice without
pulling too much in either direction and shredding.
- So, I'm going to put in it, a little bit of salt.
Beef is thought to be quite a coarse meat
with a more heavy flavor.
And so, you often find that it'll be marinated,
or you'll use a bit of shaoxing wine,
or spices, ginger, spring onion,
to soften the edges of its flavor.
So, I'm just going to add a bit of shaoxing wine.
I'm also just going to add a bit of oil,
and this will help the slices to separate.
- I like this idea of sort of trying to get this
cleaner meat flavor,
buffing off some of those funkier notes.
- And I use this in English cooking as well,
and if I'm cooking game for example.
I would definitely use a Chinese technique,
add a bit of shaoxing wine, ginger, spring onion.
When we're ready to go, I'm going to add
some starch and a little bit of cold water
to our beef and that will keep
the slices lovely and slippery.
What I'm going to do now, is actually
cook the dish, we've done all the prep.
So, I'm going to begin by stir frying these vegetables,
the accompanying ingredients, the peiliao,
and I'm going to do it in that spicy wok.
- Okay, so it's the oil - So, that's still got
the flavor of the chilies,
and it should be rather delicious.
(sizzling)
- (Daniel) Smells good.
- (Fuchsia) And this is gonna be our serving bowl.
- (coughing) You do have the - the chili fumes are
They're out and about.
- Now we're going to cook the real dish, to put on top.
So, that's some fresh oil going in.
And my chili bean paste.
I'm going to just stir fry it rather gently
to coax out the lovely, savory,
and spicy flavors without burning it.
And you can't really go too slow on this,
it's better to start slow and speed it up
because if you throw the paste into hot oil,
then it will instantly start drying out
and burning and you won't,
you'll miss the chance to get the aroma.
Can you see it's going a bit red?
So that's lovely, look, look here.
And now, let's put in the dried chilies.
And this will help give it a lovely red color.
Ginger and garlic.
So now, we put in the liquid.
(sizzling)
And I'm going to turn up the heat.
And I'm going to add a little bit of dark soy sauce
to give it a nice, rich color.
And I will drop in our slices of beef.
And drop them in a bit separately,
so they don't all stick together and clump.
- And the goal is kind of as soon as the beef
is transitioning out of pink, it's kind of ready to
- So the Chinese wouldn't tend
to eat beef that's actually pink.
But, you don't want to overcook it
and let it become leathery.
(sizzling)
Looking good.
- (Daniel) It sure looks good.
- (Fuchsia) Ladle it over the ⁠-
So now I'm heating up the oil that we have sizzle over
the top of those daokou haijiao, the knife-mouth chilies.
It has to be hot enough to produce a good sizzle,
and that's why I've got these
little off-cuts of onion there.
Of scallion.
Okay, let's go for it.
So, now I'm going to just pour our
lovely prepared spices over the top.
(sizzling) - Yeah!
(loud sizzling)
That's amazing.
- And if you're quick, you can take it
to the table while it's still sizzling.
- Oh, my God, it smells so good.
(Daniel gasping) (both laughing)
- Málà flavor for you.
- Yeah, for real.
- Let's put a few of these over as well.
Shall we go and eat?
- Let's do it. (laughing)
- So you just pick the ingredients out of the oil.
- Oh, holy cow.
Well, that is mighty good also.
(Fuchsia laughing)
- You know, you bring out the aroma into the oil,
and so the beef is nice and tender, and silky.
- Damn. (Daniel Laughing)
Yum.