Friday, February 10, 2006

Szechuan/Sichuan Cuisine

Sichuan/Szechuan is famous for its hot and spicy cuisine. Some of the common Sichuan dishes are like Kung Pao chicken (宮保雞丁), Mapo tofu/beancurd (麻婆豆腐), Sichuan hotpot/steamboat (四川火锅), "Fuqi Fei pian", which means Married Couple's Slices of Lung(夫妻肺片) etc. Since I love hot and spicy dishes, I love Sichuan cuisine, especially the Mapo tofu/beancurd (麻婆豆腐) and Sichuan hotpot/steamboat (四川麻辣火锅) .

Mapo tofu/beancurd (麻婆豆腐). The tasty hot, spicy and oily beancurd, (which gives the tongue some degree of numb feeling after eating). I love this dish :)

Sichuan hotpot/steamboat (四川火锅). The picture above showed a "ying-yong" steamboat. The inner circular pot contain the hot & spicy soup ( 麻辣烫) while the outer oxagon-shaped pot contain the normal soup. I only eat the inner spicy soup, 麻辣烫. The hot and spicy soup is really fantastic. See the amount of hot Sichuan pepper and chillies? All the red coloured things in the above picture are chillies :) Really the more spicy, the better. 越麻辣越过瘾...

Drinking the soya bean milk will help to reduce the spicy after taste. I drank several glass of luke warm green coloured soya bean milk.

Nearer view of the hot & spicy oily soup (麻辣烫).

23 comments:

Robin CHAN said...

aiyo, so much chilli,

sure kana sore throat after eating.. and hmmm, the next day you will feel the heat when going to the No 1

Jellyfish said...

woh..
that hotpot look like very nice wor.
wanna setup a biz here? we can plan plan
kekekeke...

Francis Ho said...

aiyo! I had my lunch oledi and now I am hungry again liao!!!

Chen said...

Robin,
I'm used to eating hot stuff :P
No sore throat or changes in voice leh..
I can see some people have red area around mouth after eating.. for those who are not used to loh..

jellyfish,
good idea :)

fh2o,
aik, uncle also like to eat hot & spicy food ah? :)

Alicia said...

i've never tried mapo tofu b4 ~.~
izzit nice? how does it taste like?

gus said...

I like hot and spicy food too. How come you didn't eat the soup outside the hot pot? It looks nice. Much like what we have here. Is that why you chose the hot, spicy and oily soup? Coz it's rare?

Selba said...

yummy..... I have tried the Mapo beancurd (I even bought the pasta in China and brought to Jakarta). This food during winter is really a heavan's food!!! :)

Selba said...

eerrr... green coloured soya bean milk??? does it tasted like mint? green = mint, right?

PhotoCrazy said...

This looks nice.. but on second tot I will hold back.. else I get fire down south the next day..

Chen said...

Alicia,
Taste nice or not depends on individual. I like hot & spicy food & I sapu almost all the mapo tofu. I saw the other Malaysians in my group didn't touch the tofu at all, heheh..

agus,
The soup outside the hot pot is available everywhere. I just tasted one spoon to see how it tasted like..

The hot, spicy & oily soup as u say is something "rare", at least at the moment, cos it is not available over here :) And furthermore I love hot & spicy thing. Must grab the change :D

Selba,Woo... u even bought the pasta back? That's great.. I never thought of that :P

Nope, the green coloured soya bean milk doesn't taste like mint.

photocrazy,
Hahaha... I guess u r not used to hot & spicy food? ;)

izchan said...

dang ...
Now u make me wanna eat "Tou fu".

Bad doctor.

Note: The word verification just spelled my name.

Anonymous said...

what did they put into the soya bean milk that it become green? was it pandan leaves?

Chen said...

izchan,
good for u :)
tofu is good..
healthy food :D

word verification just spelled your name? great :)
did u record that wonderful moment?

nurul,
the green soya bean milk is made from the green soya bean :) Not from the yellow soya bean which we are familiar with :) I don't know about the availability of green soya bean earlier on as well before this trip .. I have taken few pictures of green soya bean dishes.. I will post that up later on if u r interested :)

Cynthia said...

wah lau! i will probably drink soya milk for teh rest of the day.. but look superb yummie thou.. jellyfish! if you wanna start the food buzzinezz..I join you!!!

Chen said...

cynthia,
never mind mah.. soya bean milk is healthy drink :D

Jellyfish said...

so means drink YEO's soya drink a lot of times oso consider healthy?
kekekeke...

abt the idea... we can discuss about it. macam manyak potential :)

Chen said...

Yeo's soya bean milk contain lots of sugar leh.. :P And another thing is "preservative" ...

The green soya bean milk I drank over there is natural without any sugar :D
So, it's absolutely healthy ;)

Sam I Am said...

Chen~


hmmm,i've never tried mapo tofu but it looks good ,I wish we could smell the food we see on all these blogs.yummy.....

Chen said...

sam I am,
yeah, if one can smell the food on the blog, then that will be great ;) I wish too ... :D There are so many yummy & delicious dishes out there..

Pandabonium said...

It all looks wonderful to me, but I'd need to cook it myself and tone down the spice by a factor of about 10. Just the way I'm wired.

I'll for a recipe and try making mapo tofu.

Nice pictures.

Chen said...

pandabonium,
err... if the dish is not hot & spicy, then u can't call it mapo tofu already, have to give new name to your new recipe ;)

c a r c a r said...

was expected another series of sarawak photo when i knew you back home for cny in the first place, who knows you brought us another great series from china! wow, all the photos are beautiful! and i love the ma la steamboat! must try! panda, food, awesome sceneries...all are so natural and 'very china' haha...

thanks for the sharing!

Chen said...

carcar,
err... Did I say I'm going back to Sarawak? :D Hahhaha....

China is a nice place to visit (except the toilet). There are more photos on the way :)