Szchuan Cuisine_ Sichuan Numbing Peppercorn

Besides of red chili pepper that I mentioned before, there is another special pepper that you cannot ignore. It's Sichuan Peppercorn, which makes SZchuan food much more numbing, and different from other Chinese local spicy food, such as spicy food in Hunan Province or Jiangxi Province.

In fact, 'mouth-numbing' is the unique flavor for Szchuan cuisine, which are more than just spice. Many people really love this flavor in China, like me. There are so many kinds of Sichuan pepper, which grow up in different location in Sichuan province. At the beginning age of growth, the color of pepper was green. But it also can use in food. It has a fresh flavor.

People like to put the fresh pepper into cool dish. As the growth later, the color becomes to be red, and then darker. Finally, the pepper matures and dropped off. People put them into hot pot. American also like put into some pepper when they enjoy Italian pasta, beefsteak, BBQ, even sandwich. But Sichuan Peppercorn is total different from pepper that American used in western-style food. American seems like pepper powder, they didn't put whole pepper into food. But for Chinese, they would like put a pinch of pepper into hot oil when they cook.

This a video that a brave American tastes the Sichuan peppercorn directly without any food. By the way, I've never do that. It's a funny video, have a fun.

Sichuan peppercorn is a kind of herb. It's healthy for people's stomach also. Sicuan's people save dried-pepper to make pepper oil, and put them into sauce when they eat hotpot.

Briefly, chili pepper and Sichuan peppercorn are two of most important ingredients in Chinese cuisine. Don't forget putting them when you want to cook real SZchuan food at home.

A Bite of Life in SF:Szchuan Cuisine_ Sichuan Numbing Peppercorn by Farrah is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.