Cuisine

Sichuan

四川菜

Mala is two sensations at once: chilli heat and the citrus tingle of Sichuan pepper. The cuisine is also deeply savoury. Doubanjiang — fermented broad-bean chilli paste — is the red backbone of mapo tofu, which is minced meat, soft tofu, chilli and peppercorn cooked until the sauce clings. Dan dan mian is noodles in a spicy, nutty, porky sauce, not a mild peanut salad. Oil is a carrier for chilli and pepper, not a greasy accident. Calling Sichuan food merely 'spicy' misses the numb, the fermented bean and the sweet-salty undercurrent.

Chilli arrived from the Americas and Sichuan made it structural rather than optional. The region's humid basin cooking used spice, pickle and oil to keep food interesting and preservable. Mapo tofu is Chengdu home cooking that restaurants globalised; the pockmarked-grandmother story is a nickname, not a royal legend. Dan dan mian was a street shoulder-pole noodle before it was a menu item with a row of chilli oils. Overseas 'Szechuan' often means a generic chilli-chicken. The provincial kitchen is wider: dry-fried green beans, twice-cooked pork, pickled mustard, and offal treated as ordinary protein.

Bloom chilli and Sichuan pepper in oil until the kitchen smells citrus-hot, then add doubanjiang so it fries, not merely dissolves. Tofu should be soft enough to take sauce and firm enough not to vanish. Dan dan mian wants a small amount of intensely seasoned sauce, not a soup. This is not Cantonese restraint and not a national 'Chinese spicy' setting.