Preparing for a dessert recipe.

Some time ago I was asked to write a different recipe with Sichuan flower pepper, the Spice the west forgot to steal. Now that, is not an easy I have to say.
To help me make it up I tried various brands of flower peppers. Getting back to the flower pepper from Jenny Song I tasted the richness and got some ideas.

It is hard to come up with a recipe if an ingredient or spice is that new, and most of all that rich in flavour. Sure, I made a great fish soup recipe with it, but I was looking for something totally different. So I called Jenny Song for a brain session, and that gave us some ideas. I came up with an idea to make a great dessert and a small fish dish. I won’t reveal all, but you will have to start prepping with me now, in order to make a great dish fit for an Emperor in 14 days.

You will need a good bottle of grape brandy or Weinbrand, ripened on French oak, such as the Majestät Weinbrand from Germany made by the Schwarzwälder Edelbranntweinbrennerei in Bimmerle. These are available in the Lidl, but I am sure another good grape brandy will do too.
Now poor a cup of brandy in a pot or bottle that you can seal, add 6 teaspoons of sugar and 6 teaspoons of flower pepper to it.
Close the bottle and leave it closed for 14 days at least, no peeking or smelling.
In the original bottle, add ¾ of a cup (120 grams) sugar and 1 table spoon of Sichuan flower pepper. Close this bottle again, and let it sit for 14 days at least.
What you will see the colour off the flower pepper faints, while it enriches the grape brandy.
What you will smell and taste is a fantastic Grand Marnier like liqueur but with the taste of mandarin orange and herbs. . .

More to come in 14 days.

Enjoy looking at it,

Cheers Bart

There’s dried chilli and there are dried chillies.

Some time ago I had the chance to try some dried chillies from Chinaspice in the UK. These are the chaps that send me the Szechuan flower pepper and gave me a load of information about the Chengdu cuisine.
Jenny Song wrote an excellent book on the Szechuan cuisine by the way.

Anyway, I have been tasting more than a load of dried chillies and the taste varies a lot! And I am still working myself through a mountain of them and really, what a difference. Now I want to take your time for a bit, to tell you about the differences I have found.
I learned anybody can mess up the best chilli, but hardly anybody can make a good chilli taste great after it is dried. And the secret is in the time. Now sure, we all are busy and I would love to have 40 hours in a day or more, but for some things you need to take time. And drying chillies does.

Now I had them in the oven, dehydrator and what not. And it didn’t take long to learn that if I am in a hurry, and dry them at higher temperatures the taste goes bad. You always get this almost “just about not burned” taste where the sugars go beyond caramelising. . . Brr
So lower at the temp is better, also in a dehydrator, still there is something missing.
Then I air dried them on strings, like they do in France, well hellooooo! That was the taste I was looking for and wanted. And I was sure to have tasted it before, it was in air dried wild chillies I got from Bolivia, and from Mexican chillies. I got the same taste now and then in Chinese chillies you can buy here, but that is a bit of hit and miss. Some are great, most are not. Sorry for the ramble, but do try to dry on a string some time, you will be amazed. The difference is about as big as pork meat and naturally cured Prosciutto. . .

Now, today I had the honour to taste the “Facing Heaven Fingers” or rather the choatian qixiang jiao. These type of chillies go by various names, also “facing heaven 7 stars” and “seven sisters” they are sold as rather hot chillies. In the way the plant is growing, they look similar to the Rawit from Indonesia and the Cheongyang Gochu from Korea.

I think they are as hot as those too, around 50.000-70.000 SHU. The taste has a bit of citrus and fruit. Due to really being naturally dried, or cured almost, you get a bit of a liquorice taste. It is not prominent nor faint but present.
The heat is frontal, you know what you get, and it leaves a bit of a sweet taste. On the way down, it heats the mouth and throat in a pleasant way. But what strikes me most is the sweet aftertaste it has.
This chilli is used in, what I read in Jenny’s cookbook as most commonly used in Sichuan for hotpot. Now I think I am going to use this in a hotpot too, or a Carbonade flamande, hmm choices choices. I think I will keep it to only using 2, hmm, or 3?

Yours sincerely

Bart J. Meijer

Taste review Sichuan (Szechuan) peper or the spice the west forgot to steal.

Now this is an odd way to start a post, with a title like that, but you will get it later.

This pepper that is not a pepper at all, is one weird thing.
Somewhere down the line in history things got confused and the word pippali from the ancient Dravidian language (India) word for long pepper (Piper longum). Via the Persian people it landed in the Roman empire. The Romans however, turned pippali into the Latin piper which was used by the Romans to refer both to black pepper and long pepper, as the Romans believed that both of these spices came from the same plant. And they do not. Now as this piper was getting expensive, people started looking for alternatives, cheapest being the black pepper. Now following this mistake after the Roman times even the melegueta pepper was called piper in the 15th century, and after this the Portuguese dicovered the Portuguese peper (chilli ).

So, with all this history I read for hours again, I get the distinct feeling that more and more the name pepper started getting to be used for a herb or rather fruit that has a mouth feel being spicy, hot or prickly.
The Szechuan is not just a district in China, with Chengdu as its capital. And actually it is Sichuan, the Cantones write it like Szechuan. And no the Sichuan (four rivers) province is not just a province, it is almost a culture on its own complete with its own typical cuisine, fantastic. I will tell you more on a later occasion about the Sichuan cuisine.

The Sichuan (Szechuan) or flower pepper belongs to a cuisine, and I heard about it years ago, so at one point I could get them and some more of their typical spices. That name is odd and confusing as it's Sichuan, 4 rivers, Szechuan is how it appears on most menus as it is how Cantonese tend to write it...
Anyways, the utter disappointment was big as the taste was not at all that good. Now recently I got a mail from China Spice in the UK, that I needed to taste this Sichuan flower pepper that they hand selected at the spot in the Sichuan regent. So to be honest I was sort off like, sure, I can, but will it really bring something? I have heard and read soo much about their cuisine, but tried and failed, and thought nothing of it.

Curiosity killed me when I got the parcel so I simply had to dig in. Most of all actually as I was warned that the effect of this flower pepper might ever so surprise me. When I opened the bag, the aroma immediately came towards me, fragrant citrus/lemon with a flower like almost perfumy smell. Smelling again, the smell is very complex, citrus, black pepper, bayleaf and eucalyptus without the mint, maybe even lavender. Now the smell was so complex, I had to ask my friend and collogue taste tester Aldo.
Although we almost always agree, he smells something different: Flowers, curry plant, black pepper, Mandarin orange, and all combined making him think of perfume as well.
Take only half a husk John Coupland said, and told me it plays your tongue so everybody tastes it different due to a bioactive component called Hydroxy-alpha sanshool is  So I actually listened and took only half, ready with an other half. Instantly I got the citrus, black pepper and the herbs with vague bayleaf and the acidity pleasant and very strong taste, not at all like the stuff I tried earlier. After the taste has gone all around your mouth, then your tongue starts acting up, like you get different tastes on different places. Then the fizz starts, almost like a light electrical current of those fizzy candies you use to eat back when we were kids. This is really exciting!
Now to be sure I asked Aldo again, to ask what he tasted:
He tasted flowers, grains of paradise, black pepper, then the anesthetic like you get from Acmella oleracea, then Mandarin Orange.

 

Left cheap stuff- right the good quality.

Now be warned about the cheap stuff, you can see it is brown not red, or has a lot of seeds in it. The seeds are in it to make it heavier, even though the seeds can not be used, it adds weight. So even though it might be cheap, you get less value for money, and a heap of seeds you can not use. The seeds are gritty and hard, and will not soften at all. So you need to take them out. It either lacks totally for any tingling or fizzing, or the play off tastes you get. It merely tastes only like old Mandarin oranges or cheap toilet lemon blocks.
Second warning, everything tastes different after eating Sichuan pepper, your beer, your desert and your cigarette if you still smoke. They say your tongue gets rebooted after eating it, and that my readers is true, fantastic! Get the good stuff and taste, then take a bit of dark chocolate. . . .  Not telling hihi

Now as the Sichuan flower pepper from John and Jenny Coupland from China Spice are super fresh I hoped to get some seeds I might try and seed. . . . I found a stunning 4 only in a bag I will not finish in at least 3 months, that is quality. John and Jenny, you gave us taste testers a great challenge, and a lovely experience to boot eh interest to the Sichuan cuisine!
Thank you !!

Yours sincerely,

Bart J, Meijer
And Aldo !