Qiatou Yi Nen

What we eat is an essential part of who we are and how we define ourselves.

- Fuscia Dunlop, Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China

Writer Fuscia Dunlop is a well known culinary writer who has focused her attention on Chinese cuisine. Her books -- such as the one quoted above, along with others like Every Grain of Rice (which one a James Beard award in the international cookbook category -- provide interesting insights and perspectives to many different aspects of Chinese cuisine, including provincial and regional dishes, cooking techniques and ingredients. 

My introduction to Dunlop's work comes with her book, The Food of Sichuan. That food is perhaps known best for its hot and spicy dishes. Those dishes catch my attention given my love of chiles.

Yet, there is more to Sichuan cuisine that the heat of the peppers. As food writer and culinary historian, Andrew Coe, noted for Serious Eats, "Sichuan food is really about a variety of flavors: spicy, flowery (Sichuan peppercorns), salty, sour, sweet, bitter, smoky, etc." I find this description intriguing. I have previously explored the concept of "Ngũ Hành" (as it is called by the Vietnamese), which recognizes five fundamental tastes. This concept actually originated in China, which identifies those tastes as salty (or han in the Sichuan dialect), sweet (tian), sour (suan), hot or pungent (la) and bitter (ku). (Dunlop, The Food of Sichuan at 21.) 

Perhaps one of the oldest references to the five tastes can be found in the Tao Te Ching, the text written by Lao Tzu in 400 B.C.  The text is important to Taoism, a school of thought or religion that teaches how one can live in harmony within the universe. Verse 12 of the Tao Te Ching references the five tastes, although there appear to be many, slightly different translations that basically say the same thing. The translation that I chose is the following:

The five colors make people's eyes blind;

Galloping and hunting make people's heart go wild; 

Goods hard to come by make people's acts injurious.

The five flavors make people's mouth numb;

The five notes make people's ears deaf.

Hence, when the sage man ruled,

He supported the stomach, but not the eye.

Therefore he abandoned that and chose this.

All of the translations basically read as having the five tastes causing one's mouth to go numb, in other words, cause people not to taste. 

Sichuan peppercorns
(Source: Serious Eats, photo: Vicky Wasik)

In some sense, Lao Tzu's words are representative of Sichuan cooking, which has its own variation on the five tastes. However, in that cooking, the hot or pungent taste is replaced with numbing (ma). 

This change may be a nod to the use of Sichuan peppercorns, which are not actually pepper. Instead, they are the berries from the prickly ash tree. There are two types of Sichuan peppercorns: red, which provides earthy notes; and green, which provides more floral notes. Both types share something in common. When eaten or tasted, Sichuan peppercorns cause a numbing sensation. They could, in the words of Lao Tzu (however translated), cause "an injury" or "numbness" to the palate. 

Sichuan cuisine even adds another taste: umami (xian) or fragrant (xiang), creating six or seven tastes. Taken together, all seven tastes provide a window into the complexity that can be found in this regional Chinese cuisine. 

Eager to explore these seven tastes, I started selecting recipes from The Food of Sichuan to make in my home. I thought that it would be best to start with some of the simpler recipes. One such recipe - Qiatou Yi Nen - stood out. It is a fairly easy recipe, with the only difficulty arising with a couple of the ingredients. (I still cannot find Sichuan pickled chiles.) Nevertheless, I worked with what I have - including Sichuan peppercorns - to make this dish. The end result was perhaps one of the greatest chicken dishes since I made Chengdu Chicken with Black Beans, Chiles and Peanuts, which happens to be another Sichuan-inspired recipe.

Qiatou Ni Yen focuses primarily on the salty and hot tastes (as well as the Sichuan taste of numbing), both of which comes from the variety of chile and chile-based ingredients. As I move on to other recipes in The Food of Sichuan, my hope is to explore how the cuisine incorporates the other three (or, if we include the other Sichuan element, four) taste elements into the dishes. 

QIATOU YI NEN

Recipe from The Food of Sichuan, pg. 204

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 10 ounces of boneless chicken thigh, preferably with skin
• 2 teaspoons potato starch
• 1 teaspoon whole Sichuan peppercorns
• 6-8 scallions, white parts only
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped ginger
• 2 teaspoons Sichuan chile bean paste
• 1 tablespoon chopped salted chiles or coarsely chopped Sichuan picked chiles
• 1 1/2 tablespoon ground chiles
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons cooking oil (ideally a mix of half lard and half rapeseed oil)

Directions:

1. Prepare the chicken. Place the chicken on a chopping board, skin side down. Use a knife to make shallow, parallel cuts into the chicken at 1/4 inch intervals and then make similar cuts at right angles to the first ones (this cross-hatching will help the flavors to penetrate the chicken and speed up the cooking).  Cut the chicken into 1/2 to 3/4 cubes.  Place in a bowl, add the potato starch and Sichuan peppercorns, along with 1 1/2 tablespoon cold water and mix well. 

2.  Prepare the other ingredients.  Cut the scallion whites into 3/4 inch lengths. Place in a bowl and add the ginger, chile bean paste, chopped chiles, ground chiles, salt and 1 tablespoon of oil.

3. Cook the chicken. Heat the rest of the oil in a seasoned wok over high heat.  When the oil is sizzling hot, add the chicken and stir-fry. As soon as the pieces have separated, add the bowlful of aromatics.  Continue to stir-fry until the oil is gorgeously orange in color and the chicken is just cooked (test one of the larger pieces by cutting it in half to make sure). Serve immediately. 

ENJOY!