We’ve been in the mood for Chinese food a lot lately, but were wanting some new ideas. Opening some Chinese cookbooks at random led me to a chicken recipe in Land of Plenty that I’d never noticed before. It’s called Tai Bai, apparently in honor of the poet Li Bai. It’s easy to put together and involves very little chopping, which is a real selling point some nights. It has no garlic or ginger – the primary flavors are chiles, both dried and pickled, plus Sichuan pepper. It’s moderately fiery, so I wouldn’t recommend this one if you don’t have much spice tolerance. We think it’s delicious.

The recipe lets you substitute Thai pickled chiles for the Sichuan variety, which was lucky for us as we happen to have a large jar of Thai peppers that we bought on a whim last year, but it also tells you to add a spoonful of pickled chile paste to support the flavor. I used sambal oelek.

The first time I made this I had some fresh chicken stock on the stove that hadn’t been defatted, so the final dish was good and schmaltzy. The second time it was less oily, but still delicious – the chicken gets really tender and infused with flavor. We also tried steaming broccolini and then stirfrying it with the chicken at the very end so it would absorb some of the chile flavorings. Rice is a must with this – we particularly like it with slightly sticky sushi rice.

Tai Bai Chicken

From Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking by Fuchsia Dunlop

• 1 lb chicken thigh meat, boneless or bone-in, cut into 1½-2 inch chunks
• 1/2 cup peanut oil
• small handful dried red chiles, cut in half and seeds shaken out
• 4 Sichuan pickled chiles, or 6 Thai pickled chiles + 1 tsp pickled chile paste
• 5 scallions, white and green parts separated and cut into 2 inch pieces
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 Tbsp rice wine or sherry
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp Sichuan pepper (recipe calls for whole, but we used ground as I find biting into a whole Sichuan pepper a bit daunting)
• 1 tsp sugar
• pinch of salt
• 2 pinches white pepper
• 1 tsp sesame oil

Heat the oil in a wok over a high flame. Watching out for spattering, add the chicken in batches and stir fry about a minute, until it turns white but not cooked through or browned. Remove and set aside.

Remove all but 3 Tbsp of oil from the wok. Set over medium heat and add the dried chiles. Cook until fragrant but not too dark, then add the pickled chiles and paste. Stir fry briefly, then add the scallion whites and fry a bit longer. You don’t want any of the ingredients to burn, so go easy on the heat.

Add the stock, chicken, rice wine, soy, Sichuan pepper, sugar, salt and white pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer gently about 20 minutes, so the chicken cooks through and the sauce evaporates. Ideally you want just spiced oil coating the chicken by the end of cooking. You can remove the dried chiles at this point and discard them.

Just before serving, toss in the scallion greens (and steamed broccoli or other green vegetables if you want a one-pot dinner) and stir it all together. Drizzle in the sesame oil and serve with rice.

It’s always a bit odd to make a new recipe, taste it, then realize that you don’t know whether it turned out or not, since you have no idea of what it’s supposed to taste like. When we made dan dan noodles for the first time, it may or may not have been a success.

What I do know is that the noodles were flavorful, the sauce had an interesting sweet/spicy/salty tang, and the Sichuan pepper gave it so much ma that I couldn’t feel my mouth for half an hour afterwards. So perhaps it was a success. We decided to try it again another time.

That was our first time using Tianjin preserved vegetable, a fermented cabbage product that we had just recently found at a little Chinese market in Seattle’s International District. According to Fuchsia Dunlop, mistress of all things Sichuan, it’s not quite a perfect stand-in for traditional Sichuanese fermented vegetable, but it comes close. The flavor of it was sweet, a little funky and really, really, really salty. We keep trying to decide if we want to replace it when we use up the jar, or just use cabbage and lots of salt instead.

It was also our first use of Chinkiang vinegar, which we found at the same market. It’s made from glutinous rice, and has a surprisingly sweet, almost plummy aroma. The combination of the vinegar with the salty cabbage produced a really interesting flavor for the noodles.

Here is the recipe for the version we made the first time. It was pretty good, but seemed to be lacking something.

Dan Dan Mian (version one)

loosely adapted from Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop

8 oz dried or fresh wheat noodles (preferably not egg noodles)

The sauce:

• 1 Tbsp oil
• 4 Tbsp preserved veg
• 1 1/2 tsp Chinkiang vinegar
• 1 tsp ground Sichuan pepper

The meat:

• oil
• 4 dried red chiles
• 4 oz ground beef
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• pinch of salt

Put on a pot of water for the noodles.

In a wok over high heat, add a tablespoon of oil, then add the preserved vegetable and stirfry it for 30 seconds or so. Scrape out into a large bowl. Add the vinegar and Sichuan pepper.

Putting the wok back on the heat, add a bit more oil, then throw in the dried chiles. Stirfry briefly until they begin to brown a little, then add the meat and stirfry until it is cooked through and partially dried out. Add soy sauce and salt. Transfer the meat to the bowl with the sauce ingredients and stir.

Cook the noodles according to directions, drain them and add them directly to the bowl. Toss everything together and serve.

Just last week we made dan dan noodles again. This time we had thought ahead and made fresh chili oil, and we followed a different version of the recipe that called for fresh ground pork. The difference was astonishing.

The previous batch had been a little dry, and both spicy and numbing without actually being very savory. This batch was oily, salty, savory, slithery, and completely addictive. We didn’t have to ask ourselves whether it had come out right – we just inhaled it.

Dan Dan Mian (version two)

Also adapted (not as loosely) from Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop

10 oz somen or other wheat noodles

The sauce:

• 1 Tbsp peanut oil
• 4 Tbsp preserved vegetable
• 3 scallions, thinly sliced on the diagonal
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 3 Tbsp chili oil
• 1 1/2 tsp Chinkiang vinegar
• 1/2 tsp ground Sichuan pepper

The meat topping:

• peanut oil
• 6 oz ground pork
• 1 tsp sherry
• 2 tsp soy sauce

Heat a spoonful of peanut oil in a wok, toss in the preserved vegetable and stir-fry for thirty seconds. Scrape into a mixing bowl. Add the rest of the sauce ingredients to the bowl.

Put the wok back on the heat, add another spoonful of oil, and add the pork. Break up with a spatula, and add the sherry and soy. Cook until done but still wet, and add to the bowl of sauce.

Cook the noodles according to directions (somen take almost no time at all), drain, and add them to the bowl. Toss well and serve.

When I first brought home a library copy of David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop (shortly before we bought our own copy – it didn’t take long), one of the very first recipes we opened it to was this one: a custard-based ice cream with orange zest and crushed Sichuan peppercorns, wow! Jon’s been wanting to make it ever since, and we finally got our chance. We had friends over (fresh ice cream wants an audience) and made Chinese pork ribs and scallion breads, followed by this ice cream for dessert.

It was amazing: rich and creamy, with a deep aroma of fresh oranges, with each bite finishing on a tingle of Sichuan pepper. I can only imagine what it would be like with really fresh, numbing peppercorns.

Also, since it called for the zest of four whole oranges, we had a lovely excuse to have fresh squeezed orange juice the next morning.

Orange-Sichuan Pepper Ice Cream

adapted from Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompanimentsby David Lebovitz

• 3 Tbsp Sichuan peppercorns
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 oranges
• 6 large egg yolks

Coarsely crush the peppercorns in a mortar. Put them in a saucepan with the milk, ½ cup of the cream, and the sugar, and heat until warm. Zest the oranges directly into the pan. Once warm, cover, remove from the heat and let steep for one hour. After steeping, warm it back up.

Pour the rest of the cream into a bowl. Set a strainer over it.

In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm milk mixture in, whisking all the time, then pour it all back into the saucepan. Stir over medium heat until it thickens and coats your spatula. Pour through the strainer into the cream and stir. Cool over an ice bath and refrigerate until ready to run the ice cream maker. Freeze as directed.

David recommends serving this with a red wine-poached rhubarb compote - I think we shall have to try this when our rhubarb comes up. But we ate it straight and it was sublime.