Here is the fourth installment of my monthly column in Chengdoo Citylife Magazine, 'Your Chuancai Cupboard'. This month: Ya Cai.

Ya cai, is one of Sichuan’s most famous and distinctive food products. Made from the stems of a variety of mustard green, it’s fragrant and distinctive flavor is found in many of the regions dishes. Said to have been invented in the early 19th century, ya cai is just one of the myriad different preserved vegetables used in Sichuan’s cuisine, including zha cai, da tou cai ('big head vegetable')and many other regional varieties.

Ya cai’s primary ingredient is jie mo cai, a type of mustard green native to Southeast Sichuan. Around 4-5 months after being planted, the mustard green plants are harvested in the 9th lunar month. The leaves are then discarded, the stems sliced into even strips, and the strips hung out on poles to dry.

The making of ya cai is unusual among Sichuanese ingredients, in that while doubanjiang (chilli bean paste) and dou chi (fermented black beans) only require one fermentation stage, ya cai demands two. Once sufficiently dry, the mustard green stems are mixed with salt and left to ferment in sealed containers for 3 to 6 months – small ceramic pots called tu tan are traditionally used. This is the first of the two fermentation stages.

Once the first stage is complete, the mustard green stems are boiled with brown sugar for 8 to 9 hours, and are hung up to dry out once more. Now, star anise, Sichuan pepper, and other spices are added, and again, the mustard green stems are left to ferment in sealed containers for another 3 to 6 months.

In Chengdu’s markets you can sometimes find un-cut ya cai – long, straggly strips of green-brown vegetable, bought by weight – but mostly ya cai is bought already chopped up in small, sealed packages. When buying ya cai make sure to buy a brand based in Yibin, the city about 250km southeast of Chengdu which is the most celebrated producer of this ingredient. Once opened, you should store ya cai in a sealed container in a cool, dry place.

Though a few different brands exist, by far the most common is Yibin’s Sui Mi Ya Cai Company, who apparently started the practice of chopping up ya cai, hence the name – sui mi means crushed rice, referring to the appearance of the company’s bitty, pre-cut ya cai.

Ya cai is often mixed with pork for the stuffing of baozi, and is also a vital ingredient in Yibin’s signature dish, ran mian (‘burning noodles’). But it is perhaps most famously used in one of Sichuan’s most popular vegetable dishes, Dry-Fried Green beans. I’ve eaten countless different versions of this dish, but this one is my favorite.

Dry-fried Green Beans

250g green beans
2 tablespoons ya cai
1 tablespoon fermented black beans (dou chi), rinsed and drained
5 dried chillies, halved and seeds discarded
1 teaspoon Sichuan pepper (huajiao)
3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced, and the same amount of ginger, thinly sliced
3 spring onions, cut into 3cm lengths
50g minced pork (optional)
Cooking oil
Salt to taste

1. Top and tail the green beans, and cut into 5cm lengths.
2. Heat your wok, and add about a tablespoon of cooking oil. Once hot, add the pork and stir-fry for a few minutes until cooked through, and then set aside.
3. Add a tablespoon of oil to the wok, and once hot add the beans, stir-fry for a couple of minutes, and then add another 1-2 tablespoons of oil. Stir-fry for another 3-5 minutes, or until the beans are tender. Remove from the wok and set aside.
4. Add another tablespoon of oil to the wok, and once hot add the garlic and ginger slices. Stir-fry on a moderate heat for about 30 seconds, and then add the chilies and Sichuan pepper. Stir-fry for another 30 seconds, taking care not to burn the spices, and now add the ya cai and dou chi and stir-fry for another 30 seconds.
5. Finally, add the spring onions (and the pork, if using), and return the beans to the wok. Stir-fry for another minute or so, add salt to taste, remove to a serving dish and serve.

Last weekend, myself and fellow Chengdu-dwelling foodie Reed went to Yibin, in Southeastern Sichuan. Our purpose in Yibin was to research ya cai for my next column in Chengdoo Magazine, and of course, try out some local foods. Needless to say, this being China, our goals were well and truly satisfied, and it was this snack that kicked things off.

We arrived in Yibin a little disheveled after our 3 hour plus bus journey, and once getting settled in our hotel room set off to get ourselves some nosh. On a busy shopping street barely 5 minutes walk from our hotel, we found this snack. In Chinese it is called shi yang juan, roughly translated into English as ‘ten kinds bread roll’, and you can see why.

The small bowls you see at the front of the stall - including shredded carrot, radish, tofu and fresh coriander - contain the ingredients already mixed together in the big bowl behind them, to which the vendor adds sesame paste, vinegar and other sauces when you order. Then a bread roll is generously stuffed with a portion of this dressed salad and it’s ready to eat.

After the very first bite I was lamenting that we don’t get this snack in Chengdu, because it was delicious – strongly flavored but not overwhelming, and refreshingly non-greasy. Maybe I’ll have to start up my own shi yang juan stall...I bet I’d make a killing.

Another winter, another sausage season.

Come the cold weather, the streets are strung with countless strings of wind-drying sausage. Some will be hung from trees...

…others from bamboo poles...

…anywhere will do actually.

Sichuanese sausages are usually served as a cold appetizer, sliced into slanted rounds. They are a little like French sausisson – richly oily, with a chewy, meaty texture. Their name in Chinese, xiangcheng, is rather poetic, loosely translated as ‘fragrant lengths’, and they are a common feature on winter dinner tables.

Last year, experiencing a sudden craving for Western food, I begged my local butcher to sell me a sausage before it was properly dried. Though he resisted, I eventually got my sausage, fried it and ate it in a sandwich with ketchup. This year though, I will eat sausages as the Sichuanese do, served simply with a dip of ground chillis – great for when I’m feeling too lazy to cook.

Sausages hung from the eaves of a traditional wooden house in Tiefo Ancient Town, East Sichuan.

Sausages hung beside the furnace of a blacksmith’s workshop, also in Tiefo.

Here is the third installment of my monthly column in Chengdoo Citylife Magazine, 'Your Chuancai Cupboard'. This month: Dou Chi.

Dou chi 豆豉, or fermented black beans in English, may not be Sichuan’s most famous product, but these intensely flavored little nuggets nonetheless make an appearance in many of the region’s most famous dishes. As well as playing an important role in Sichuan’s cuisine, dou chi are also widely used across China (particularly in the Cantonese tradition), and the ubiquitous Chinese restaurant staple ‘black bean sauce’ is eaten in Chinatowns from Los Angeles to Lagos.

The English name ‘fermented black beans’ is, however, a misnomer. The bean used to make dou chi is not the black turtle bean (commonly used in the cuisine of the Americas and the Carribean), but the soybean, which is soaked, steamed, and then fermented to produce a salty, pungent flavoring.

Variations of dou chi abound across Asia, the most famous examples being Japanese Natto, Korean Cheonggukjang, and Himalayan Kinema. But while these versions rely on added bacteria to speed up the fermentation process, Chinese dou chi usually only have salt added, making their fermenting time much longer, and their taste less overwhelming than their Japanese and Korean counterparts.

As well as being one of the most widely used of Chinese cooking ingredients, dou chi is also one of the oldest. Scholars believe them to have been used in cooking as far back as the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), making them one of the earliest known soy products in history. And not only are they tasty, but dou chi are also said to be good for your health, used by Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners to relieve irritability, restlessness, and insomnia.

Sichuan’s most famous dou chi is made in eastern Yongchuan County, but although modern technology is often used to speed up the lengthy traditional method, a few other small producers still dot the Sichuan countryside. One of these is the Southwest Flavorings Company, who make dou chi, fermented tofu and many other traditional Chinese cooking ingredients at their factory in Longquan, an hour from Chengdu. Here, the process from dried soy bean to finished product takes a whole year.

First, the dried soybeans are soaked in water, and then steamed till soft. Next, any remaining liquid is squeezed out of them, salt added, and then the beans are packed into sealed containers and left to ferment for many months. At the Southwest Flavorings Company, the dou chi is available in ‘original flavor’, or with other ingredients are added, such as chilli or sesame seeds.

In China, dou chi can be bought loose in markets, and is also available in small sealed packages from both markets and supermarkets. Outside of China, packets of 'Fermented Black Beans' can be bought at most Chinese or Asian stores. When buying dou chi, try to look for beans that are oily, plump and shiny, and remember to rinse them before use to remove any grit.

I like to add dou chi in small quantities to liven-up simple stir-fries, and it’s particularly good paired with fish. But it is perhaps most famously used in the much-loved Sichuan staple, Twice-cooked Pork, a recipe for which I’ve adapted from Fuchsia Dunlop’s Sichuan Cookery and provided on the right.

Twice-cooked Pork 回锅肉

300-400g half fat, half lean pork, in one piece
1 small piece of fresh ginger, sliced
8 suan miao, ‘green garlics’ (spring onions are also fine)
1 tablespoon chilli bean paste (doubanjiang)
1 teaspoon sweet wheat paste (tianmianjiang)
1 tablespoon dou chi
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
Salt

1. Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Add the ginger and the pork piece. Return to the boil, and then simmer at a low heat for about 20-30 minutes, until the pork is just cooked. Remove the pork, allow to cool, then place in a bowl with a little of the cooking liquid and refrigerate for a couple of hours (or overnight).
2. When the meat has cooled, slice it as thinly as possible, with each slice half fat and half lean.
3. Wash, top and tail the green garlics, and slice into 3cm-long chunks.
4. Heat the wok, and add about 2 tablespoon of cooking oil. Once hot, add the pork slices and stir-fry until they are slightly brown.
5. Now, push the pork to the side of the wok, and add the chilli bean paste to the space you made. Stir-fry for about 30 seconds, until the oil has turned red, then add the sweet wheat paste and dou chi and stir-fry for another few seconds. Now mix everything in the wok together, and add the soy sauce, sugar and salt to taste. You can add a little of the pork cooking liquid if it get too dry.
6. Finally, add the green garlics, mix and stir-fry until they are just cooked. Remove the finished dish to a serving plate, and eat with steamed rice.

While I was in France this summer, helping out on the singing course that my mum organises, I was entreated many times to cook a Chinese dish. Though at first I was enthusiastic about this idea, I began to get cold feet when I realized that, being in deepest rural France, I could get very few of the necessary ingredients. I worried that anything I produced would be inauthentic, and thus no good.

After much cajoling, however, I gave in, and decided to cook a cold aubergine dish. This was a dish I’d made many times in China, but it needed some serious adaptation for cooking in France. I did have with me some of the authentic Chinese ingredients, such as ground chilies and fermented black beans, but everything else was just whatever I had to hand.

The result was a somewhat odd, Asian-European fusion dish, which surprisingly, actually ended up being quite good. Given the improvisational nature of its creation, writing a recipe for this dish is, I know, a bit contradictory in spirit. Nonetheless, I thought I’d write it up for those occasions when one wants Asian flavour, but may lack a few of the ingredients.

Sichuan-en-France Cold Aubergine

1 aubergine
Cooking oil
1 tablespoon of any Asian soy sauce (Tamari and Shoyu are both fine)
1 tablespoon cider, wine or fruit vinegar
1 tablespoon chili oil (see below)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon fermented black beans (dou chi), rinsed and drained
Salt to taste
Fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped

1. First, make the chili oil by heating a jarful of cooking oil in a frying pan or wok, and once smoking hot, adding it to a bowl containing 2-3 tablespoons of ground chilies. Mix well, and allow to cool before using.
2. Chop the aubergine into finger-length chunks, toss in some cooking oil, and then roast in a hot oven until thoroughly cooked.
3. Make the sauce by combining the soy sauce and vinegar with the sugar in a small bowl. Mix well so as to dissolve the sugar in the liquid, and then add the chili oil, fermented black beans and salt.
4. Once the cooked aubergines have cooled to room temperature, place on a serving plate. Drizzle with the sauce, garnish with the mint leaves, and serve.