It's the last Wednesday in February, and the final column dedicated to a specific kind of food lover. I've gone through cheese, chocolate and bacon lovers, which all felt kind of easy and obvious. I had a bit of a harder time coming up with my fourth kind of food lover, and finally settled on: spicy food lovers.
I am not a spicy food lover. I like some spicy food, and even go so far as to sometimes tell a Chinese restaurant that when I order Szechuan chicken, I want it to be spicy (but I like the sauce to taste spicy, and then I don't eat the whole actual spicy peppers in it).
But there is definitely a cult of people out there who are spicy food junkies. They often travel with sriracha sauce. They are fans of hot wings. And perhaps they grow their own hot peppers and make their own hot sauce.
To a true spicy-food lover, I have little that I can offer as far as personal experience goes. And I figured that they already have a hot wing recipe or spicy chili recipe that they prefer, so anything I found wouldn't be new, or new enough, to get them excited. So I decided to go global instead. After all, American food is hardly the spiciest food as far as food cultures go.
There are a lot of different Asian styles of food, and a lot of them have spicy dishes. I reached out to a friend of a friend who is known for her Chinese cooking, and she recommended this recipe for what she calls cold noodle salad — which is not what I expected! She said she first tried this dish at a Chinese restaurant after really talking with her waiter, and he brought this out and said it was what the chef had made for his own lunch. Apparently in the Sichuan province, this is a very common snacky food, like macaroni and cheese to America. I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds very interesting. I've added her suggested substitutions for ingredients that might be hard to find.
And second, I wanted to find an Indian curry. I found some great blogs for authentic Indian curries, and this one was described as being very spicy-hot and earthy-spicy. I haven't made this one either, but I feel like I learned about the culture just by reading the recipe.
Enjoy!
Chicken noodle salad Sichuan style
8 ounces fresh thin noodles (or angel hair pasta)
2 teaspoons rapeseed oil or sesame oil
1 small cup of soaked soy beans (or 1 cup canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained)
Oil for frying the beans
1 English cucumber, shredded
1 spring onion, chopped for garnish
For the chicken:
1 small chunk of boneless chicken breast
Around 10 whole Sichuan peppercorn seeds (or pink peppercorns)
1 green onion
2 slices of ginger
1 teaspoon salt
For the chili oil:
1 teaspoon Sichuan pepper powder (or cayenne powder)
1 tablespoon red chili pepper powder
2 star anise
4 slices of ginger
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Other seasonings:
3 garlic cloves--smashed
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
Pre-soak the dried soy beans until they are double in size. Transfer out and drain with kitchen towel.
Peel the tough part of cucumber and then slice into shreds, lengthwise, about 3 inches long.
Add 1 tablespoon cooking oil in wok and add soaked beans to fry until you hear the "Pa Pa" sound. Transfer the beans out and set aside to cool down.
In a large pot, put chicken meat, 2 slices of ginger, whole Sichuan peppercorns and 1 spring onion in. Bring the content to a boil and then keep cooking for 5 minutes. Cover the lid and set aside for another 10 minutes until the chicken meat is totally cooked. Soak in cold water and shred by hand.
Place Sichuan peppercorn powder, chili pepper powder, 1 star anise, 2 slices of ginger in a small bowl. Heat up around 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil in pan with 2 slices of ginger and 1 star anise until there are waves on the surface and the oil is really hot. Discard the ginger slices and star anise. Pour the hot oil slowly into the bowl with the spicy powders.
Cook noodles in boiling water for around 4 minutes. Transfer out. Spread them and cool them down with an electric fan or cold water.
Add rapeseed oil in the noodles and mix well. Transfer to a mixing bowl, add chili oil, soy sauce, salt, vinegar, sugar, garlic, shredded chicken meat, chopped spring onion and shredded cucumber. Mix well and then top with chopped spring onion and fried soy beans.
Source: www.chinasichuanfood.com
Chettinad chicken curry
For the chicken:
1 whole chicken, about 5 pounds
3 1/2 tablespoons ginger-garlic paste
3/4 teaspoons turmeric powder
Salt
For the spice mix:
2 1/2 tablespoons whole peppercorns
6 whole dried red chilies
1 1/2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
3/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons poppy seeds
6 cardamom seeds
6 whole cloves
2-inch cinnamon stick
2 star anise
2 sprigs curry leaves
1/2 cup coconut, grated
For the gravy:
3 cups red onion, chopped
3 tomatoes
2 sprigs curry leaves
Coconut oil
Salt, per taste
Marinate the chicken with fresh ginger garlic paste, turmeric powder and salt. Set it aside in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour
Meanwhile, take a heavy bottom pan and add all the ingredients under "spice mix" and keep stirring for 5 to 8 minutes. Take the spices off the heat and let it cool. Once cooled transfer it to a blender, add water to it and grind it into a fine paste.
Heat some coconut oil in a large saute pan and add onions and curry leaves and season with salt. Saute until the onions are golden brown. Mix in chopped tomatoes and saute until the tomatoes are soft and mushy.
Stir in the marinated chicken and cover and cook for 20 minutes, stirring in between to make sure that chicken is not sticking to the bottom of the pan. Open the lid and add the ground spice mixture. Add water and adjust the salt and cook until you the gravy reaches the desired consistency. Serve warm with rice, roti, appam or dosa.
Note: This dish is very hot and spicy (that is how it is meant to be), but you can adjust the peppercorns and red chilies in the recipe to tone down the heat to suit your taste.
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