Thursday, January 15, 2004

By Kathryn Matthews

In 2004, the Chinese Lunar New Year falls on Jan. 22. It's the Year of the Monkey, a time ripe for power, courage, action, anarchy and success (even with risky ventures), Chinese astrologers foretell. The monkey, they say, represents revolution, movement and change. Consider Mick Jagger, Bette Davis, Nelson Rockefeller and Leonardo da Vinci, all born in the Year of the Monkey.

	Local spots ring in Chinese New Year New Year brings chance to celebrate culture

During this 15-day holiday, many Chinese celebrate by visiting family and friends and commemorating their ancestors. For everyone else, Chinese New Year is a happy excuse to celebrate one of the world's great cuisines.

Because we live in New York City, my husband and I either rendezvous with friends in Chinatown or have our own Chinese New Year fete and prepare jiao zi (dumplings), traditionally an auspicious celebratory food because they are shaped like gold coins, auguring good fortune. (At any rate, they're a hit with guests.)

This year, however, we're opting for a Sichuan-style New Year menu, featuring Sichuan roast duck and ti pon, a slow-cooked fresh ham studded with Sichuan peppercorn.

The heat is on

Sichuan Province, in west-central China, has a legendary reputation for its chili-laced gastronomy, extolled by Chinese poets and epicureans for a millennium. As a popular Chinese saying goes: "China is the place for food, but Sichuan is the place for flavor."

And I grew up in the 1970s eating Sichuanese food. But not in China or at then-novel Sichuan restaurants popping up in urban areas such as New York City or Los Angeles, where diners were getting their first taste of orange beef, hot-and-sour soup, twice-cooked pork and kung pao chicken.

Instead, I was eating fiercely flavorful Sichuanese cooking in Pittsburgh prepared by my father, Thomas Kuo, a native of Long Chon, a small town midway between Chengdu and Chonqing in Sichuan Province. There were homestyle dishes, such as zha cai rou tsi (shredded pork with preserved mustard tuber), strips of pork tossed with julienned red and green bell peppers and crunchy bits of pickled mustard; fin ch'en rou (steamed pork with rice meal), sweet potato wedges dipped in a hoisin and soy sauce-based marinade, rolled in rice meal, then layered with slices of pork belly, dipped similarly, and steamed until buttery soft.

There were also special occasion dishes, such as dumplings, ti pon and tsay pi yu (sweet-and-sour crispy fish), pan-fried sea bass in a gingery chili bean sauce.

"It's outstanding, right?" my father would prompt impatiently after I had savored a few mouthfuls. I'd shrug nonchalantly in teenage defiance, then clean my plate. Radiating spicy heat and savory sustenance, these dishes were -- for me -- the ultimate comfort food, especially when the temperature dipped well below freezing and the wind howled outside.

Later, when I was more vocal about my appreciation for my father's cooking, he told me that, in addition to chiles, Sichuan peppercorn (known as hua jiao), used whole or ground roasted, is the ubiquitous spice that gives Sichuan fare its distinctive flavor and character. Our family vacations to Toronto had served a double purpose, he confided: He was able to stock up on hua jiao, like fine china at a fire sale.

To his cooking, my father applied the same intellectual instinct that had enabled him to escape a politically divided China in 1949 and start a new life as a Chinese intellectual in Pittsburgh (at the University of Pittsburgh).

In the tradition of Chinese scholars, my father was a gastronome, as comfortable in the kitchen as he was behind a podium. Though raised on Sichuan food prepared by a family cook during an era when domestic cooking was regarded as women's work, he ventured into the kitchen for reasons both sentimental ("I want to remember my hometown and family") and practical ("I want to eat good Chinese food!").

I have come to feel the same way about Sichuanese home cooking. With few exceptions, Sichuan restaurants often disappoint. It is, perhaps, a conspiracy of expectations: Diners anticipate an "authentic" Sichuanese meal to rival a Bikram yoga class -- hot enough to make you sweat. And chefs frequently oblige with four-alarm chili-laced dishes that lack nuance and dimension.

Land of plenty

Over lunch last fall at Grand Sichuan in Manhattan's Chinatown, my father's doppleganger eerily emerged in the form of a 34-year-old tousled-hair brunette from London: Fuchsia Dunlop, the British author of "Land of Plenty" (W.W. Norton, $30), a meticulously researched Sichuanese cookbook, showcasing the diversity and depth of the cuisine.

For the past decade, Dunlop's scholarly pursuits have largely been inspired by an inquisitive stomach.

A Cambridge graduate and currently a radio journalist at the BBC, Dunlop was a copy editor at the BBC Asia-Pacific desk when she first traveled to China in 1992 on a business trip. Returning to London, she took evening classes to learn Chinese. A year later she visited Chengdu, where she became smitten with Sichuanese food, describing it as "an amazing revelation."

It was, in fact, because of the food that Dunlop chose to study at Chengdu University after receiving a scholarship from the British Council in 1994. Once there, she discovered that the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine was nearby, and she immediately arranged to take private cooking lessons. The school invited her back to enroll in its professional chefs' program. She accepted without hesitation.

"I've always loved cooking, and after Cambridge and the BBC -- all sensible career moves -- I thought, why not do something just for fun?" said Dunlop, whose English accent is as dry and crisp as peanut brittle.

After this intense indoctrination, she returned to London, determined to write a Sichuanese cookbook. Between the research and recipe testing, it took six years to complete and was first published in London in 2001. The book gives a thorough introduction to Sichuanese cuisine, with in-depth chapters on cutting skills, cooking methods, equipment and ingredients.

Dressed in a lipstick-pink top and black jeans, Dunlop surprised the Grand Sichuan waiters by ordering dishes in flawless Mandarin: cold Sichuan noodles, cold chicken chunks thick with garlic paste, tender sauteed snow pea shoots, dry-fried string beans, shredded pork with garlic sauce and a braised carp with tofu in a hot chile bean sauce.

Between considered bites, she offered erudite commentary: "Really nice, a bit of sweet-sour and soy" she murmured of the noodles, while noting that the pork dish was "too sweet" and that, though the chicken was appropriately garlicky, "this needs a splash of red chile oil."

"The biggest misconception about Sichuanese cuisine is that it's appallingly hot and that's all there is to it. A single dish can have layers of flavors -- hot, sweet, sour, salty, pungent," she said.

In her book, she describes 23 such complex flavor combinations. "The Sichuanese also enjoy dishes, like crunchy jellyfish or rubbery tripe, because of their texture," she explained. "I wouldn't cook offal for the uninitiated, but there are so many dishes that are immediately appealing."

The recipes in her cookbook reflect this sensibility. Aside from requisite trips to an Asian market for specific ingredients, many recipes -- dan dan noodles, tea-smoked duck, fish stew, steamed eggplants with chile sauce, among others -- are delicious testament to just how accessible Sichuan home cooking can be.

SICHUAN SHAO YA (SICHUAN ROAST DUCK)

It is always an event when my father prepares his Sichuan roast duck. Studded with Sichuan peppercorn, the duck marinates in a rice wine and salt mixture for three days. Cooking the duck is a two-part process: it is first steamed, which renders all the duck fat, then roasted. The end result is a lean, crisp-skinned duck -- as beautiful as it is delicious.

• 5- to 6-pound duck,
  
• rinsed and patted dry
  
• 1 tablespoon hua jiao, or Sichuan peppercorn (available at most Chi- nese grocers)

Marinade:

• 5 to 6 teaspoons salt (1 teaspoon salt per pound of duck)
  
• 5 to 6 tablespoons Chi- nese rice wine or dry sherry (1 tablespoon per pound of duck)

Combine salt with rice wine or sherry and stir until dissolved.

Place duck in a nonreactive bowl large enough to hold it. Add rice wine and salt, turning the duck until it is completely bathed in marinade. Cover entire duck with whole Sichuan peppercorn.

Seal bowl tightly with aluminum foil, and place in refrigerator.

After 1 1/2 days, turn the duck, basting well with rice wine mixture, and let it marinate another 1 1/2 days.

To cook: Take duck out of the marinade and remove all peppercorns.

Place duck on a round steamer rack or in a glass pie plate that fits in the steamer tray. Fill the bottom of the steamer (or wok) with water level about halfway (from the bottom edge of the steamer tray). Once the water comes to a boil, reduce heat to medium and steam the duck, covered, for approximately 45 minutes, replenishing the boiling water if necessary. At this point, most of the duck fat will have been rendered.

Remove the duck from the steamer and let it cool for about 15 minutes, or until skin feels "dry" to the touch.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place the steamed duck, breast side up, on a rack in a roasting pan, and roast for approximately 25 minutes. Flip duck over (breast side down) and roast another 20 minutes, or until the skin is brown. The total roasting time is about 45 minutes.

Let the duck cool briefly, and cut it, through the bones, into bite-sized pieces. Arrange attractively on a platter and serve.

Serves 4 (as a main dish) or 8 (as a side dish).

TI PON

This is slow cooking at its savory best. In China, pork is the meat of choice for most celebratory occasions. As a boy growing up in Sichuan province, my father recalls, he and his family really anticipated ti pon, or slow-cooked fresh ham, at the Chinese New Year table.

As it bubbles on the stove, the spicy aromatic heat of star anise and sha jiang (sand ginger, also called "sliced ginger" at some Chinese markets) fills the kitchen, then wafts throughout the house -- the perfect antidote for a frigid winter evening.

• 5 to 6 pounds fresh ham or picnic shoulder
  
• 5 or 6 pieces star anise
  
• 5 or 6 pieces sand ginger
  
• 1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn
  
• 1/2 cup dark soy sauce.

Place pork on a sturdy low or flat rack in a heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven large enough to hold the meat comfortably. (If you don't have a low rack, be sure to periodically shift the meat from one side of the pot to the other to prevent it from sticking to the bottom.) Fill pot with enough water to completely cover pork.

Turn heat on high, add star anise, dried sand ginger and Sichuan peppercorn; bring the water to a boil.

Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, for 2 hours, replenishing simmering water if necessary. (There should always be at least 4 inches of liquid in the pot at all times.) Slowly pour soy sauce over pork, brushing it all over. Baste frequently with the cooking liquid.

Continue cooking pork for about 1 hour, or until the liquid is much reduced, the outside is well-browned and the meat inside is fork-tender. Remove pork and cut into chunks. Discard spices, and pour sauce over the pork. Serve immediately.

Serves 8 as a main dish.

STEAMED EGGPLANTS WITH CHILE SAUCE

• 2 large eggplants or 6 to 8 slender Asian egg- plants
  
• Salt
  
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Chinkiang or black Chinese vine- gar
  
• 2 teaspoons sugar
  
• 2 tablespoons chili oil
  
• 1/4 teaspoon chile flakes
  
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil

Trim eggplants, halve lengthwise, then again into quarters. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Leave on at least 30 minutes to draw out bitter juices. If you are using Asian eggplants, trim and halve them lengthwise. Salting is optional.

Steam eggplants over a high flame for 10 to 15 minutes, or until tender. Let cool and then cut into chunks.

Combine soy sauce, vinegar and sugar in a small bowl, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add oils and chile flakes.

Serve eggplant with the sauce as a dip.

Serves 4 as a starter.

Adapted from "Land of Plenty" by Fuchsia Dunlop

Kathryn Matthew is a New York food writer.

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