One of our favourite dishes, it is definitely a sichuan food and is seen made with fermented black beans called douchi, or minced pork is added but not commonly. In fact is it classically cooked and suspended in an oily red pepper, and this not what I am used to.

Chinese refers to the sensation “Mala”, or the feel described by cooks using seven specific Chinese adjectives: numbing, spicy hot, hot temperature, fresh, tender/soft, aromatic, and flaky. In Japan we have sancho which is very similar and from the same geneology.

The authentic form of the dish is only in Sichuanese restaurants that do not adapt the dish for to those non-Sichuanese tastes. The hot usually comes from facing heaven peppers mixed with Sichuan peppercorns.