Southwestern Chinese cooking built on layered heat rather than raw heat: chilli, the numbing tingle of Sichuan pepper, and a deep bench of fermented pastes and pickles. The signature is fuzzy flavour, several notes held at once, and the region is far more sour and savoury than its reputation for pure spice suggests.
Sichuan dry-fried green beans with a crisp pork and shiitake crumble, and chilli and Sichuan pepper fried to hu la
Green beans are dry-fried in oil until the skins wrinkle and blister. Pork mince, fresh shiitake and suimiyacai are fried together until the crumbs are crisp.
Sichuan architecture on a Japanese noodle, bound in a cold silken tofu emulsion
Hard-fried pork with bloomed dried chilli, garlic, ginger and Yibin suimiyacai, on udon. A cold sauce of blended silken tofu and peanut satay binds the bowl.