Twice-cooked pork (hui guo rou)

This dish, which literally means "back-in-the-pot meat," is what Fuchsia Dunlop calls the most famous and profoundly loved of all the dishes of Sichuan. This combination of intensely flavored pork and fresh green vegetables is a source of great nostalgia for Sichuanese people living abroad, she says, and it often seems to be tied up with elderly people's childhood memories. It also happens to be a favorite of my friend Jesse, who is living in China for a year. So it's fitting that I used Jesse's present of fermented chilli bean paste for the first time to make hui guo rou.

Twice-cooked pork is so named because the pork is first boiled, then fried in a wok with seasonings. Sichuanese cooks use a cut of pork thigh that is split between fat and lean, with a layer of skin over the top. Dunlop suggests pork belly as a substitute, but I managed to find a cut of well-marbled skin-on pork at the best Chinese grocery in town, Ming's Supermarket in the South End. I have no idea whether it was thigh meat, as the label simply said "pork meat with skin," but it worked great. The amount of fat is gross while you're preparing it, but like with bacon, most of it oozes out during the wok-frying. Dunlop also substitutes leeks for the traditional green garlic, assuming it's hard to find, but green garlic is in season now and in abundance at the farmer's markets — get it while you can.

Jesse, I'll make this for you.

3/4 pound fresh, boneless pork belly with skin attached
6 stalks of green garlic
2 T. peanut oil
1 1/2 T. chilli bean paste
1 1/2 tsp. Sichuanese sweet bean paste
2 tsp. fermented black beans
1 tsp. dark soy sauce
1 tsp. white sugar

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pork, return to a boil, and simmer gently until just cooked, 20-25 minutes. Remove the meat and refrigerate for a couple hours or overnight to firm up the flesh. This makes it possible to slice it thinly without the fat and lean parts separating.

2. When the meat is cold, slice it thinly. Chop the green garlic diagonally at a steep angle into thin, 1 1/2 inch long pieces.

3. Heat the wok, then add the oil and pork pieces, stir-frying until the fat has melted out and they are toasty and slightly curved. Push the pork to one side of the wok and tip the chilli bean paste into the space you have created. Stir-fry for 30 seconds until the oil is richly red, then add the sweet bean paste and black beans and stir-fry another few seconds. Add the soy sauce and sugar, tossing well.

4. Add the green garlic and toss until it is just cooked. Turn onto a serving dish and eat immediately with lots of white rice.

Liuyang black bean chicken (liu yang dou chi ji)

Tonight we're having four friends to dinner, so I'm attempting to execute four Chinese dishes at the same time, including one I've never made before: Fuchsia Dunlop's Liuyang black bean chicken. This dish makes generous use of the richly savory black fermented beans, a specialty of Liuyang in Hunan province. I actually bought two incorrect products by mistake before triumphantly locating the beans on my third attempt at the Chinese grocery. They came in a little bag, not a jar, labeled "salted black beans." These are actually soybeans preserved in salt, not the black beans you know from Mexican food, and need to be rinsed before use for cooking.

1. Cut a pound of boned, skin-on chicken thighs into bite-size chunks. Put them in a bowl with 1 T. of light soy sauce and mix well to marinate.

2. Peel the cloves from a whole head of garlic, cutting any very large ones in half. Peel and thinly slice a 2-inch piece of ginger. Cut the green parts of four scallions into 1 1/2-inch lengths. Rinse 4 T. black fermented beans in a strainer.

3. Heat 2 cups of peanut oil for deep frying to 350-400 degrees. Add the chicken and stir-fry until it has changed color, then remove from the wok with a slotted spoon and allow the oil to return to 350-400. Return the chicken to the hot oil and deep-fry again until tinged golden. Remove and set aside.

4. Drain off all but 3 T. of oil from the wok, then return it to a medium flame. Add the ginger and garlic and stir-fry a few minutes until they are fragrant and the garlic cloves are tender. Add the black beans and stir-fry until fragrant, adding a splash of Shaoxing wine. Now shake in some red chilli flakes and stir-fry a few moments until they have lent their heat and red color to the oil.

5. Return the chicken to the wok and toss it in the fragrant oil, splashing in 2 T. clear rice vinegar and salting to taste. When everything is sizzling, throw in the scallions, and stir a few times until barely cooked. Turn off the heat, stir in 1 T. sesame oil, and serve.

Spicy cold noodles with chicken slivers (ji si liang mian)

These cold, refreshing sesame noodles are a sweeter cousin of the more fiery dan dan noodles — and a great way to use up leftover chicken meat. They use the same essential seasonings in different proportions, but the heat of these noodles is tempered with sugar, garlic, bean sprouts and white chicken.

Adapted from Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Plenty:

1. Cook 1 pound of fresh Chinese flour-and-water noodles 2-3 minutes until just al dente. Drain and rinse them with hot water, shake them in a colander and spread them out on a dish towel to dry. Sprinkle a bit of peanut oil over the noodles and mix it in with chopsticks to prevent them from sticking together.

2. Meanwhile, blanch the bean sprouts for a few minutes in boiling water, then refresh in cold water and drain well. Whack a leftover cooked chicken breast with a pestle or rolling pin to loosen the fibers, then tear into little slivers. Peel 3-4 cloves of garlic and squash them with the pestle. Thinly slice four scallions.

3. Now combine the following: 2 T. sesame paste, 1 1/2 T. dark soy sauce, 1/2 T. light soy sauce, 1 1/2 T. Chinkiang black vinegar, 2 T. chilli oil, 1 T. sesame oil, 1/2 T. sugar, 1/2 tsp. ground roasted Sichuan pepper, and the crushed garlic cloves.

4. When the noodles and bean sprouts are completely cool, pile the bean sprouts at the bottom of several serving bowls. Add the noodles, pour the seasonings on top, and top each bowl with a pile of chicken slivers and a scattering of scallions. Allow your guests to toss everything together at the table.

Pork slivers with sweet fermented paste (jing jiang rou si)

I know, its name is so appealing. But that's the translation Fuchsia Dunlop gives to this rustic Sichuanese stir-fry, which turned out so pleasantly mild that I'll cook it up next time we host chilliphobes. The key ingredient is sweet bean paste, found in the mysterious jar aisle of any Chinese grocery.

1. Cut 12 ounces of boneless pork loin into thin slices and then into long, thin slivers, ideally about 1/8 thick. Place in a bowl with 2 tsp. cornstarch, 2 tsp. cold water, and 1 tsp. Shaoxing rice wine and stir in one direction to combine.

2. Cut the whites of 4 scallions into 4-inch sections and then lengthwise into fine slivers. Dilute 5 tsp. Sichuanese sweet bean paste with 1 T. of water to give it a runny consistency.

3. In a small bowl, combine 1/2 tsp. sugar, 1/2 tsp. soy sauce and 2 T. chicken stock.

4. Heat 1/4 cup peanut oil over high, swirl in a bit of oil, and stir-fry the pork briskly. After a minute or two, when the slivers have separated and are becoming pale, push them to one side of the wok and let the oil run to the other side. Place the sweet bean paste in the space you have created and stir-fry for 10-20 seconds. Then tilt the wok back to normal, mix the paste with the pork slivers, and add the soy sauce mix. Stir well, turn onto a serving plate, and garnish with the scallion slivers.

John and I are off to Portland, OR tomorrow, so watch this space for our yummiest finds.

Genghis Khan beef

This colorful stir-fry adapted from Grace Young's cookbook packs a nice spicy punch. I've found that trimmed chuck steak turns out excellently in stir-fries. Commonly used in braising, this inexpensive cut has enough intramuscular fat to stay tender in the hot wok.

1. Cut 12-16 ounces of beef into 1-inch cubes. In a medium bowl, combine 1 tsp. each of dark soy sauce and light soy sauce. Add the beef, stir to coat, and marinate while you prepare the other ingredients.

2. Thinly slice a bunch of garlic cloves and pull the stems off 6 red Thai chillis. Slice the whites of 8-10 scallions into 2-inch pieces and cut a few of the green sections into slivers for garnish.

3. In a small bowl, combine 2 T. hoisin sauce, 1 T. sambal olek, and 1 tsp. sesame oil.

4. Heat a wok over high and swirl in a bit of oil. Add the beef, spreading it evenly in the wok, and let it cook undisturbed for a minute to begin to brown. Then stir-fry the beef 1-2 minutes until just browned all over and transfer to a plate.

5. Wipe the wok with a paper towel and swirl in a bit more oil. Add the garlic and chillis and stir-fry a few seconds until fragrant. Add the scallion whites and stir-fry another minute. Return the beef to the wok, add the hoisin mixture and stir-fry 30 seconds. Turn onto a plate, garnish with the scallion greens, and serve with steamed rice.

Drumsticks with caramelized onions

This was the dinner I made the night we got our cat. He was still a little shy, but kept trying to jump into my lap during dinner. I didn't give him any because onions are bad for cats. He jumps in my lap all the time now, so I'll never know if it was because he smelled chicken.

Adapted from Grace Young's Breath of a Wok:

1. Slice one onion and a few scallions. Thinly slice a few garlic cloves and mince a piece of ginger.

2. Heat a wok until smoking, then swirl in a bit of oil. Add the garlic, ginger and onion, season with salt and white pepper, and stir-fry over medium heat 4-5 minutes until light golden. Transfer to a plate.

3. Add a little more oil to the wok, then add 6 or so chicken drumsticks, spreading them evenly in the wok. Pan-fry 20-25 minutes over medium heat, turning the drumsticks until browned on all sides and the chicken is cooked through.

4. Add the cooked onions, the scallions, 2 T. oyster sauce, and a drizzle of sesame oil, stirring over low heat until well combined. Serve with white rice.

Fish-fragrant bean curd and dry-fried green beans (vegetarian)

In Chinese cuisine, even the vegetables are not vegetarian. I own three Chinese cookbooks, and the vegetable recipes are nearly always cooked with chicken broth (something vegetarians might want to be aware of when ordering in Chinese restaurants). I wondered what vegetarians in China do, particularly the millions of vegetarian Buddhists. I figured that a Western vegetable stock of carrots and potatoes wouldn't be quite appropriate.

Fuchsia Dunlop addresses this in one line of her Sichuanese cookbook, which says that Chinese vegetarians often make a broth out of bean sprouts, which they believe have a savory flavor. So when my vegetarian friend Margaret came to lunch last weekend, I experimented with this concept on her. And it worked! I don't even like bean sprouts, but a handful sauteed in peanut oil and then boiled in water creates an aromatic brown broth.

Vegetarian fish-fragrant bean curd (so called because this method of seasoning is traditionally used on fish):

1. Heat a bit of peanut oil in a big saucepot and stir-fry some bean sprouts. Add salt and water to cover, then simmer for 20 minutes or so. The bean curd calls for only 3/4 cup, but you can make more and use it for other recipes.

2. Meanwhile, mince a generous amount of garlic and ginger and slice a couple of scallions. Cut a block of tofu into squares and drain on paper towels.

3. Heat oil in a wok and stir-fry the garlic, ginger and scallions with 2 T. Sichuanese chilli bean paste. Add the tofu and stir-fry a bit more. Add 3/4 cup of the bean sprout stock, bring to a boil, and season with 1 tsp. sugar and 2 tsp. soy sauce. Mix well and simmer on low 10 minutes so the bean curd absorbs the sauce.

4. Dissolve 1 tsp. cornstarch in a little water and stir into the sauce to thicken. Serve with steamed rice.

Vegetarian dry-fried green beans (maybe even nicer than the traditional version made with chicken stock and pork):

1. Trim the ends of 10 to 12 ounces of green beans. Slice 2 scallions thinly at a steep angle. Mince 3 cloves of garlic and an equal amount of ginger. Snip 8 Sichuanese dried chillis in half.

2. Heat a little oil in a wok over a medium flame. Add the beans and stir-fry about 6-8 minutes until they are tender with slightly puckered skins. Remove and set aside.

3. Heat some fresh oil over a high flame. Add the chillis and 1/2 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns and stir-fry very briefly until they are fragrant but not burned. Quickly add the garlic, ginger, and scallions and stir-fry until they are all fragrant. Throw in the beans and toss. Remove from heat and stir in a bit of sesame oil.

Red-braised beef with white radish (hong shao niu rou)

We appearing to be having a last spate of winter weather here in Boston, so it seems like a good time to write about this warming Chinese beef stew. As I was making it, I couldn't help but notice how similar it was to an American pot roast. In place of oregano and bay leaf, the aromatics are star anise and Sichuan pepper. And rather than carrots, daikon radish or kohlrabi is added in the last minutes of cooking, contributing delightful crunch. Of course, with a base of Sichuanese chilli bean paste, this pot roast is decidedly hotter than normal.

Adapted from Land of Plenty:

1. Cut the beef into 1- to 2-inch chunks and salt them. Crush a 1- to 2-inch piece of unpeeled ginger with the side of a chef's knife. Cut 2 scallions into 2 or 3 sections.

2. Heat a bit of oil in a heavy pot over medium heat. Add 6 T. chilli bean paste, stir-fry 30 seconds, and add the beef. Add 1 quart beef stock, 4 T. Shaoxing cooking wine, the ginger and scallions, 2 tsp. dark soy sauce, 1 tsp. whole Sichuan pepper, and 1 star anise. Bring the liquid to a boil, skim if necessary, then simmer gently on low until the beef is tender, about 2 hours.

3. When the beef is nearly ready, trim a daikon radish or kohlrabi and chop it into chunks to match the beef. Add them to the pot and simmer until they are just tender. Salt if needed and serve garnished with fresh cilantro.

Ma po tofu

Ma po tofu, my Sichuanese cookbook says, is named after the smallpox-scarred wife of a Qing dynasty restaurateur. She is said to have prepared this spicy, aromatic, oily meal for laborers who laid down their loads of cooking oil to eat lunch on their way to the city's markets: "Many unrecognizable imitations are served in Chinese restaurants worldwide, but this is the real thing, as taught at the Sichuan provincial cooking school and served in the Chengdu restaurants." Indeed, this fiery dish spiked with chillis and tingly Sichuan pepper bears little resemblance to the ma po of Chinese takeouts.

The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of oil, as it's traditional to serve this dish with a good layer of chilli-red oil on top, but says it will work with as little as 3 tablespoons. I compromised with 1/4 cup of oil. It still was quite oily.

1. Cut a 1 lb. block of bean curd into 1-inch cubes and leave them to steep in very hot, lightly salted water. Slice 4 scallions at a steep angle. Grind a few Sichuanese chillis to a powder. Whisk 4 T. cornstarch with 6 T. cold water.

2. Add up to 1/2 cup peanut oil to the wok over a high flame and heat until smoking. Add 6 ounces ground beef and stir-fry until it is crispy and a little brown.

3. Turn the heat down to medium, add 2 1/2 T. chilli bean paste, and stir-fry 30 seconds until the oil is a rich red. Add 1 T. fermented black beans and the ground chillis and stir-fry another 30 seconds.

4. Drain the bean curd. Pour in 1 cup of chicken stock, stir, and add the bean curd. Mix it in gently by pushing the back of your ladle gently from the edges to the center of the wok — do not stir or the bean curd may break up. Season with 1 tsp. sugar and a splash of soy sauce and simmer 5 minutes.

5. Gently stir in the scallions. When they are just cooked, add the cornstarch mixture in 2 or 3 stages, mixing well, until the sauce has thickened enough to cling glossily to the meat and bean curd. Don't add more than you need. Finally, pour everything into a bowl, scatter with ground Sichuan pepper, and serve.

Beef with cumin (zi ran niu rou)

I was excited when John gave me Fuchsia Dunlop's Hunanese cookbook for my birthday two months ago, but I've been cooking so much Sichuanese I had barely cracked the cover until tonight. The book says the Hunanese are known for their bold, spicy cooking. Unlike their Sichuanese neighbors, who temper their chilli spice with a touch of sweetness, Hunan people like their food unapologetically hot. Tonight I made my first Hunan recipe: beef with cumin. Dunlop says the spice is associated with the northwestern Muslim region of Xinjiang, where they rub their grill meats with cumin and chillis.

Her recipe calls for 2 full teaspoons of cumin. I love bold flavors, but even I found this dish overcuminy. I have reduced the amount in my adaptation below.

1. Trim the fat from 1 pound of beef steak, such as sirloin or chuck, and cut it against the grain into thin slices. Mix 1 T. each of Shaoxing wine, cornstarch and water with 1 tsp. each of dark and light soy sauce. Combine well with the beef to marinate while you prepare the other ingredients.

2. Mince 2 T. ginger, 1 T. garlic and 2 fresh red chillis. Thinly slice 2 scallions.

3. Heat 1 1/4 cups peanut oil to about 275 degrees for frying. Add the beef and stir gently. As soon as the pieces have separated, remove them from the oil and drain well.

4. Pour off all but 3 T. of the oil. Over a high flame, add the ginger, garlic and chillis, as well as 2 T. dried chilli flakes and 1 T. ground cumin. Stir-fry briefly until fragrant, then return the beef to the wok and stir well.

5. When all the ingredients are sizzlingly fragrant, add the scallion greens and toss briefly. Remove from heat, stir in 1 tsp. sesame oil, and serve.

Spicy braised fish with whole garlic (da suan shao yu)

My Chinese cookbooks have many fabulous-looking recipes for whole fish. I have been eating fish this way since I was a kid, and it really is true that the closer the bone, the sweeter the meat. However, I had never cooked a whole fish until yesterday, when I spied some handsome red snappers on ice at the Roslindale Fish Market.

This superb recipe calls for three heads of garlic. Don't cut back on the amount, because the method of frying turns it mellow and lovely, and you'll only be wishing you had more of these sumptuous cloves on your plate.

From Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Plenty:

1. Get a 1 1/2 pound white fish like carp, snapper or sea bass, cleaned, with head and tail intact. With a sharp knife, make shallow slashes at 1 1/2-inch intervals across the fattest part of the fish, at right angles to the backbone. These will help the flavors to penetrate its flesh. Salt the fish and rub it with 1-2 T. Shaoxing rice wine. Set aside to marinate in the wine while you prepare the other ingredients.

2. Peel the cloves from 3 heads of garlic. Mince 2 T. ginger and finely slice the green parts of 2 scallions. Dissolve 1 T. cornstarch in 3 T. cold water.

3. Heat 1/3 cup of oil in a wok over a gentle flame until hot but not smoking. Add the garlic and stir-fry about 5 minutes until the cloves look slightly wrinkled and are just tender; they should remain white. Remove the cloves with a slotted spoon and set aside.

4. Drain the fish and pat it dry with paper towels. Turn the heat up to high and fry the fish until its skin has tightened. Remove and set to drain on paper towels.

5. Turn off the heat and allow the wok to cool slightly. Then add 4 T. chilli bean paste and the ginger over a medium flame and stir-fry a minute until the oil is deep red and smells delicious. Pour in 2 cups of chicken stock, turn up the heat, and bring to a boil.

6. Stir in 1 T. sugar and 1 T. dark soy sauce, then add the fish. When the liquid has returned to a boil, turn the heat down to medium and simmer about 6 minutes. Turn the fish over in the sauce, add the garlic, and continue to simmer another 6 minutes until the fish is cooked and the sauce is much reduced.

7. Transfer the fish onto a serving plate. At this point you can arrange the garlic cloves around the fish like a string of pearls, or just keep them in the wok to be poured over the fish. Add the cornstarch mixture to the liquid in the wok, stirring to thicken the sauce. Turn off the heat, stir in the scallions and 1 tsp. Chinkiang black vinegar, and pour the sauce over the waiting fish. Serve immediately with rice.

Chicken dressed two ways

In her cookbook Land of Plenty, Fuchsia Dunlop describes five different ways of dressing cold chicken meat. These sauces are meant to be a simple yet dramatic introduction to Sichuanese cuisine. She suggests serving them as appetizers or cooking a whole bird and "surprising your guests" with a choice of three or four different sauces served in little bowls around a central dish of piled-up chicken meat. While you could certainly use leftover roast chicken meat, chickens in Sichuanese cooking are always poached in water. In keeping with the Chinese obsession with uniform cutting, cut the chicken in either chunks, slices or slivers — mixing different shapes in the same dish is seen as messy and unbalanced.

Here are two of these dressings for chicken. The first, chicken slices in sichuan pepper and sesame oil sauce, is dressed with a lovely, summery sauce that uses pureed scallions and resembles pesto in consistency. The second, fish-fragrant chicken slivers, uses the same delectable flavorings as in fish-fragrant aubergines.

Chicken slices in sichuan pepper and sesame oil sauce (jiao ma ji pian):

1. Soak 1 teaspoon of raw Sichuan peppercorns for a few minutes in very hot water. Slice 1 pound of cooked chicken meat.

2. Slice the green parts of 5 scallions, then whizz them into a green paste in the food processor with the Sichuan pepper and a dash of salt.

3. Mix the scallion paste with 3 T. chicken stock and 2 T. soy sauce in a small bowl. Stir in 1 1/2 T. sesame oil. Pour over the chicken and serve, optionally, on a bed of sliced cucumbers.

Fish-fragrant chicken slivers (yu xiang ji si):

1. Cut or shred 1 pound cooked chicken meat into fine slivers and lay them on a serving dish. Finely slice the green parts of 3 scallions. Very finely mince a few cloves of garlic and an equal amount of ginger.

2. Combine 3 T. soy sauce, 1 T. Chinkiang black vinegar, 1 T. sugar in a bowl. Whisk in 2 T. chilli oil and 2 tsp. sesame oil. Add the ginger, garlic, scallions and 1-2 T. Sichuanese chilli bean paste. Mix well, pour over the chicken, and serve.

Tofu with black bean sauce

If I ever fell on hard times, I would probably eat this dish at at least 3 times a week.

Block of tofu: $1

1/4 lb. pork: $1

Chicken broth: $.50

Small quantities of beans, garlic, scallions, sauce, rice: ~$1

We're talking less than $4 for a rich, delicious, fast and, as far as I can tell, healthy dinner for two. Go on, try it.

Adapted from Grace Young's The Breath of a Wok:

1. Cut a 14 oz. block of firm tofu into 12 pieces. Put them on paper towels to drain and sprinkle with a little salt.

2. Whisk 2/3 cup chicken stock with 1 T. oyster sauce, 1 tsp. cornstarch and a pinch of sugar. Slice 2 scallions thinly.

3. Rinse and drain 2-3 T. Chinese fermented black beans. Mince 3-4 garlic cloves. In a bowl, combine the beans, garlic, 1 T. soy sauce and 1 tsp. Shaoxing rice wine. Mash with a fork.

4. Heat a wok on high and swirl in a little oil. Add 4 ounces ground pork, stir-frying just until cooked. Remove the meat to a bowl, keeping its juices in the wok.

5. Add the tofu to the wok, cooking a couple minutes until browned. Stir in the bean mixture and stir-fry 30 seconds until fragrant. Now stir the broth mixture and add it to the wok, stirring until the sauce thickens. Add the pork and scallions and simmer another minute. Serve with white rice.

Sea-flavor noodles (hai wei mian)

When my Sichuanese cookbook author Fuchsia Dunlop indulged in fiery dan dan noodles in Chengdu, she often coupled it with a bowl of this tamer noodle soup to counterbalance the scorching heat of the dan dan. The sea flavor in this warming dish comes from dried shrimp, as fresh seafood was hard to come by in the inland province of Sichuan. You can find the tiny shrimp sold in plastic bags in any Asian market.

This was an intensely satisfying meal, just the thing for a rainy Sunday afternoon. Be warned — not for mushroom haters.

Adapted from Dunlop's Land of Plenty:

1. Soak 1 ounce of dried baby shitake mushrooms and 1 ounce of dried shrimp for 30 minutes in enough hot water to cover them. (Since I don't have a kitchen scale, I interpreted one ounce as "some.")

2. Cut 1/2 pound of pork loin into thin, 1/8-inch slices and season with salt. Slice 1/4 pound of fresh button mushrooms to match the pork. Slice 3 scallions thinly.

3. Heat 2 T. peanut oil in a wok over a high flame. Add the pork and stir-fry until it whitens. Splash in some Shaoxing rice wine around the edges and let it sizzle. Add the mushrooms and stir-fry another minute. Now pour in the bowl of dried mushrooms and shrimp with their soaking water, as well as 1 quart chicken stock. Bring to a boil and leave to simmer on low for an hour, until the pork is very tender.

4. Season the broth with salt and white pepper. Bring a separate saucepan of water to a boil for cooking the noodles. Add 1 package thin wonton noodles for just 60 seconds, then drain. Divide the noodles into bowls. Spoon the meat and mushrooms over the noodles and sprinkle the scallions on top, then fill the bowls with the soup. Feeds 3.

Fried rice two ways

Whenever John and I made too much rice, we used to stupidly throw away the leftover bits at the bottom of the pot. Now we save them up for fried rice, which must be cooked with cold rice or it comes out mushy. Fried rice is beautiful — it's quick, delicious, colorful and can be made with whatever meat or vegetables you've got.

First up is Mandarin fried rice, adapted from Grace Young's Breath of a Wok. This dish uses lap xuong, the sweet, fatty Chinese sausage found in any Asian grocery. Lap xuong evokes major childhood nostalgia for me. My grandmother sliced it, fried it up and served it to me over sticky rice, the hot fragrant grease sinking through the rice to permeate every grain. As an adult, I noticed that the second ingredient is pork fat. To save our arteries, I bought the "extra lean" kind.

1. Thinly slice 1 Chinese sausage. Mince a few cloves of garlic and an equal amount of ginger. Slice 2-3 scallions thinly.

2. Beat 2 eggs. Heat a wok until smoking, then swirl in 1 T. peanut oil and 1 tsp. sesame oil. Tip in the eggs and tilt the wok so that the eggs cover the surface as thinly as possible to make a pancake. When the pancake is just set, turn it onto a cutting board and slice it into shreds.

3. Reheat the wok with another T. of peanut oil. Add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry 30 seconds. Add the sausage and stir-fry 1 minute. Add the scallions and 2-3 cups of cold cooked rice, breaking up large chunks of rice. Add a splash of Shaoxing rice wine and stir-fry 2-3 minutes until heated through. Season with soy sauce and white pepper, add the egg shreds, and toss to combine. Feeds 2.

The second version is Thai basil fried rice, very loosely adapted from Kasma Loha-Unchit's recipe.

1. Cut 1/2 lb. chicken or pork into small pieces and sprinkle with fish sauce. Chop 6 cloves of garlic and 2 Thai chillis. Thinly slice 3-4 shallots.

2. Heat a wok until smoking and swirl in 1 T. peanut oil. Add the meat, leaving undisturbed for a minute to brown, then add the garlic, chillis and shallots. Stir-fry a couple minutes until meat is cooked and vegetables slightly browned.

3. Add 2-3 cups cold cooked rice and stir-fry until rice is softened and has begun to brown. Add 2 T. black soy sauce and toss to coat the rice. Season with fish sauce, then remove from heat, stir in a cup of Thai basil leaves and sprinkle liberally with white pepper. Serve with a wedge of lime. Feeds 2.

Farm-style omelets

In her book Breath of a Wok, Grace Young devotes about three pages of buildup and a full page of description to the following recipe, made for her by a rice farmer when Young visited the southern Chinese city of Yangshuo to research the book. These delicate yet piquant little omelets use dried shitake mushrooms, prized in Chinese cooking for their strong and meaty flavor. The omelets are wok-fried and then braised briefly in the soaking liquid used to rehydrate the mushrooms. These were the best omelets I ever had, bursting with fresh herbs and a little hotness and delicious with white rice. If either the cooking time or the heat is increased, the omelets become dry and tough, so be sure your pork is not icy cold or the omelets will require more time to cook.

Adapted from Young's recipe:

1. In a small bowl, soak a small handful of dried shitake mushrooms in 1/2 cup cold water 30 minutes or until soft. Meanwhile, finely mince 1/4 cup cilantro, a couple scallions, a few cloves of garlic and a couple hot fresh chillis. When the mushrooms are ready, squeeze them dry, reserving the soaking liquid. Discard the stems and finely mince the caps.

2. In a bowl, combine the cilantro, scallions, garlic, chillis and mushrooms with 4 ounces ground pork and a pinch of salt. In another bowl, beat 5-6 large eggs.

3. Heat the wok over high and swirl in a bit of oil, then using a measuring cup, pour a 1/4 cup of egg into the wok like pancake batter. (Young says to do two at once, but I had trouble keeping them separate in the rounded bottom of the wok). Cook on medium 20 seconds until bubbles form around the edges. Spoon some pork mixture onto the pancake and fold it in half. Then fold it in half again to form a flat cigar shape and cook 1-2 minutes until golden. Transfer to a plate. (Or push the omelets up the side of the wok to keep cooking at a lower temperature, but I would only do this if you are working very quickly).

4. Continue forming little omelets with the remaining eggs and pork mixture (you should end up with about 8). When all the eggs are cooked, return the omelets to the wok, increase the heat to high, and add the reserved mushroom liquid. Cover, reduce the heat to medium, and cook 2 minutes. Turn the omelets, cover, and cook 2 minutes or just until the pork is no longer pink. Feeds 2.

Chairman Mao's red-braised pork (hong shao rou)

I say I eat everything, but the one thing I cannot stomach is animal fat. That slippery, gelatinous texture is the reason I hated my native Vietnamese cuisine as a kid — most people think of Vietnamese as light and refreshing, but homestyle cooking typically involves very fatty cuts of meat. The same is true of Chinese food. In her cookbook Land of Plenty, Fuchsia Dunlop explains that one of the greatest obstacles to a profound appreciation of Chinese food in the West is our very limited sense of texture:

Most Westerners think of pork fat with distaste: It's the horrid bits you leave at the side of a steak, or a dangerous substance best bred out of farm animals. The Chinese, however, have long regarded pork fat as a delicious luxury, and when you try eating it the Chinese way you will probably understand why.

Fine. I'm learning to cook Chinese food, I'll try fat. The fattiest dishes are made with pork belly, a well-marbled cut of meat with a thick ribbon of fat and skin attached. These days crisp-skinned pork belly has made its way onto many couture menus, typically north of $10 for a small appetizer portion, so I was pleased to find it in a Chinatown grocery for under $3 a pound. I bought a piece to make red-braised pork belly, Chairman Mao's favorite dish. Apparently Mao's doctor, concerned about his fat and cholesterol, had forbidden him from eating any more red-braised pork, but Mao paid no attention. (He also famously said: "If you are scared of the chillis in your bowl, how on earth will you dare to fight your enemies?")

This dish slow-cooks the decadent meat in a seductive braising liquid of stock, soy sauce, rice wine, sugar and spices. (The red-tinted meat makes a lovely Valentine's day presentation.) Note that in Chinese braises, one typically blanches the meat in boiling water before beginning the slow cooking. This removes bloody juices, which the Chinese find undesirable. Dunlop says you can skip this step if you want, so I just seared the meat to develop a golden crust as we do in Western braising.

1. Blanch a 1- to 1 1/2-pound piece of boneless pork belly for a couple minutes in boiling water, then remove and rinse in clean water (optional). Cut the pork into 2- to 3-inch chunks, leaving each piece with a layer of skin and mixture of lean meat and fat. Crush a 2-inch piece of unpeeled ginger with the flat side of your knife. Cut 2 scallions into 3 or 4 sections each.

2. Heat a trace of oil on high in a heavy-bottomed pot, then add the pork chunks, allowing surfaces to sear and brown briefly. Add the ginger, scallions, 2 cups chicken stock, 1 T. dark soy sauce, 2 T. Shaoxing wine, 2 T. brown sugar, half a cinnamon stick and half a star anise (4 segments). Stir well.

3. Bring the liquid to a boil, then simmer half-covered or uncovered over a very low flame for 2 hours, stirring from time to

time, until the liquid is much reduced and the meat is fork tender. Serve with plenty of white rice.

So how did I like it? Much, much more than I expected. The meat was meltingly tender and wonderfully aromatic. I even spooned more of the unctuous gravy over my rice. Red-braised pork is a fabulously rich dish, so some light and refreshing stir-fried bok choy or other vegetable is the perfect accompaniment.

I could not eat the fat, however. Those revolting blobs just sat in my bowl, flavoring the rest of the meat with their proximity, and that was enough. Sorry, but there are some places I just can't go.

Green bean redux

I've now tried three recipes for Sichuanese green beans. The first, from Bill and Cheryl Jamison's book Around the World in 80 Dinners, was terrible. The Jamisons called the recipe "wok-charred beans" but instructed me to cook the pork first and then add the beans to the wok. The presence of the pork crowded the wok and allowed no opportunity for the charring and wrinkling characteristic of the beans in this dish. That recipe also incorporated large, anise-scented Chinese olives, which I don't much care for. Fuschia Dunlop's recipe is better, and the simplest of the three. But I loved the use of ginger, scallions, Chinkiang black vinegar and chicken stock in the version in Grace Young's Breath of a Wok. (The Jamisons' version used chicken stock and black vinegar as well.) Then I missed the ya cai in Dunlop's recipe, so I added that as well (obviously optional if you don't have any). I believe the directions below employ the best of the three recipes. Young comments that this dish reaches full flavor after sitting for a few hours, which makes it an ideal make-ahead dish for dinner guests.

1. Combine 1/4 chicken broth, 1 T. sugar and 1 tsp. salt in a small bowl.

2. Heat the wok, swirl in 2 T. peanut oil and add 1/2 lb of green beans. Reduce the heat to medium and pan-fry, turning the beans until they are wrinkled with brown spots. Transfer to a plate and repeat with another 1/2 lb. of beans.

3. Add 2 T. minced ginger and 2 ounces of ground pork to the empty wok and stir-fry, breaking up the pork until it has lost almost all its pink color. Add 2 T. ya cai and stir-fry another minute. Swirl in the broth mixture and add the beans, tossing to combine, and cook a couple more minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated. Stir in 1 T. Chinkiang vinegar, 1 tsp. sesame oil and 2 thinly sliced scallions. Remove from heat and serve hot or at room temperature.

Chicken with Sichuan peppercorns

This aromatic dish is from Grace Young's cookbook Breath of a Wok. It uses Sichuan peppercorns, also prominent in dan dan noodles. I probably haven't talked about Sichuan pepper enough. These dark red peppercorns should be roasted in a wok to bring out their flavor — just heat them up dry in the wok until they are slightly brown and fragrant — and then crushed in a mortar or spice grinder. It's a culinary cliche to say something is doing a dance in your mouth, but in the case of Sichuan pepper it is true. It's hard to explain the tingling, numbing sensation to somebody who hasn't tried it. The Mandarin word for Sichuan pepper heat, "ma," is the same word used to describe anesthesia and pins and needles. Far gentler yet in a way more startling than chilli heat, Sichuan pepper spice is intensely pleasurable. Well, to me. John's coworker's Chinese wife hates Sichuan food, says it's like little bombs going off in her mouth.

Notice how in this recipe the chicken is supposed to be cut in small cubes and the garlic, ginger and scallion sliced to match. The Chinese consider it sloppy to serve a stir-fry without uniform cuts (see above), but my chicken thighs were all misshapen, and I have neither the drive nor the knife skills to get too fussed.

1. Cut 12 ounces of chicken thigh meat into 1/2-inch cubes. Combine the chicken, 1 tsp. Shaoxing rice wine, 1 tsp. cornstarch, and a sprinkling of white pepper in a bowl.

2. In a second bowl, mix 2 T. chicken broth, 1 T. Chinkiang black vinegar, 2 tsp. sesame oil, 1 tsp. sugar, 1 tsp. chilli oil, and 2 more tsp. rice wine.

3. Slice some garlic, ginger and scallions all into thin slices. Roast 1/2 tsp. Sichuan peppercorns and grind them to a powder.

4. Heat the wok over high heat, then add a bit of peanut oil, 8 small red dried chillis and the chicken meat. Cook undisturbed for one minute, letting the chicken begin to brown. Then stir-fry 1 to 2 minutes until the chicken is brown. Transfer to a plate.

5. Add the garlic, ginger, scallions and Sichuan pepper to the wok and stir-fry for 15 seconds. Return the chicken to the wok. Stir the sauce mixture and swirl it in. Stir-fry 30 seconds until the sauce thickens slightly and serve over white rice. Feeds 2.

Ants climbing a tree (ma yi shang shu)

We tend to have a binary relationship with meat. Those with humane or environmental objections to meat typically don't eat it at all. The rest of us gorge it at every meal. I thought of this strange dynamic a few weeks ago when a girl in my cooking class, a former vegetarian, confessed the secret to her butternut squash soup - sausage. It killed her vegetarian sensibilities to add it, she said, but it was the ingredient that made the soup's flavors sing. To me, it seemed she should have been praising the sausage trick. A small amount of meat, crumbled into a large pot of soup, would go a long way in imparting savory flavor to a predominantly vegetable-based meal.

There are a lot of compelling reasons to be vegetarian. Agribusiness is awful to animals and the earth. I think factory farming is a moral crime. But I cannot give up meat. I love the way meat tastes. It's prominent in just about every culinary tradition, and I value the access it gives me to other cultures and foodways. Like me, most other people are not ready to give up meat. And they get defensive or dismissive when you bring up the ethical arguments. But all of us could eat less of it without feeling that much sacrifice, and it's hard to argue against the health benefits of eating less meat. If four people decreased their consumption by 25%, wouldn't that have much the same impact as converting one full-fledged PETA vegetarian? (Mark Bittman has done a ton to promote this concept.)

Many of the Chinese dishes I've been cooking - dan dan noodles, fish-fragrant aubergines and dry-fried beans among them - make judicious use of meat as a flavoring agent. Meat doesn't play center stage in any of these dishes, but a small sprinkling of ground pork or a splash of rich chicken stock dramatically enhance their deliciousness. A one-pound package of pork can last us four meals or more these days. Obviously, this cooking strategy was really useful when money was tight and meat hard to come by, but I think it's just as relevant in modern times.

One such dish is what Fuchsia Dunlop's Sichuanese cookbook charmingly calls Ants Climbing a Tree. If you dangle a few strands of these noodles from your chopsticks, Dunlop explains, tiny morsels of meat will cling to them, apparently like ants climbing a tree. This dish uses glass noodles, easily found in any Asian market and sometimes labeled "mung bean thread" or "bean vermicelli." In case you're wondering, light Chinese soy sauce is predominantly used for seasoning, while dark soy sauce is less salty and added for color.

1. Soak 1/4 lb. glass noodles in hot water for 15 minutes. Add a splash of Shaoxing rice wine and a couple pinches of salt to 1/4 lb. ground pork or beef and mix well.

2. Heat your wok over a high flame, add 1 T. peanut oil and stir-fry the ground meat with a splash of light soy sauce until lightly browned and crispy. Add 1 1/2 T. chilli bean paste and stir-fry until the oil is red and fragrant. Add 1 2/3 cups chicken stock and the drained noodles and stir well. Tip in 1/2 tsp. dark soy sauce for color, and season with light soy sauce to taste.

3. When the stock has come to a boil, simmer over a medium flame for 10 minutes until the liquid has mostly evaporated and been absorbed. Add 3 finely sliced scallions, mix well, and serve. Feeds 2.