Ever had that dilemma... you know, when you've been flicking through a cook book looking for something new to cook and you can't make your mind up? Dish A looks amazing and Dish B sounds awesome. Which to cook?
This salad was born out of one of those dilemmas. I've been working my way through Fuchsia Dunlop's excellent cook book "Every Grain Of Rice", a varied and comprehensive book of recipes Fuchsia learned in Sichuan province in her travels to China. It's a wonderful book, and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to go beyond Chinese restaurant food.
Trouble is, the book has so many recipes, it will take me months to cook my way through it! One very interesting discovery has been the salad recipes in the first chapter of "Cold Dishes". Having had a go at Lao Hu Cai (Tiger salad) a very easy to prepare cucumber and chilli salad, I was ready to try my hand at some other recipes. Trouble was, there were two I wanted to make at the same time: Xiang You Qing Dou (Sichuanese Green Soy Bean Salad) and Liang Ban Hu Dou (Sichuanese Broad Bean Salad). In the end, I decided to mash the two up. This recipe is the result.
The dressing is Fuchsia Dunlop's, as I don't know enough about Sichuanese food ingredients to invent my own. It packs a chilli punch, let me tell you! If you can't take a lot of chilli, then you will want to keep the amount of chilli oil down (1 tablespoon rather than 2) and perhaps omit the half teaspoon of sediment.
If you make it as in the recipe, it will be vegetarian and vegan. But I couldn't resist making this much more sinful. I topped it with some crispy cooked pancetta (highly irregular and extremely inauthentic). I would try steamed prawns in it next time.
Sichuan inspired pepper, carrot and broad bean salad
(Serves 2)
For the salad:
500g bag of broad beans
A third of a cucumber
Half a yellow pepper
A small carrot
Three spring onions
A handful of salad leaf (I used a bistro salad mix)
Fuchsia Dunlop's dressing:
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
Half a teaspoon caster sugar
Quarter teaspoon Chinkiang vinegar
1-2 tablespoons chilli oil with half a teaspoon of sediment
1 clove of garlic, crushed (optional - but I used it)
A few pinches of Sichuan peppercorns (optional - but I used it)
Prepare the salad first:
1. Double pod the broad beans. You will be amazed - the half kilo bag only gave enough broad beans for what would have been a side dish.
2. The broad beans should be blanched in boiling water for 1 minute, no longer. Drain and run cold water over them to stop the cooking.
3. Peel and chop the carrot into small cubes (around 1 cm). Chop the pepper into similar sized cubes. These should be blanched in boiling water for 1-2 minutes, no longer. Drain and run cold water over them to stop the cooking.
4. Peel the cucumber partially (in stripes along the length), scoop out the seeds/pulp. Cut into juliennes.
5. Cut the spring onions into small 7mm-1cm rounds.
6. Put all the salad ingredients into a large non-metallic bowl whilst you make the dressing.
7. Toast the Sichuan peppercorns in a dry pan until you can just about smell them. Remove from the heat. When they are no longer hot, grind them in a mortar and pestle.
8. Now mix all the dressing ingredients in a small (non-metallic) bowl. They might need a bit of a whisk to combine them.
9. Put a couple of handfuls of the salad leaf on two plates.
10. Either mix the dressing with the other ingredients (which were in the large non-metallic bowl) or put the other ingredients onto the plates and drizzle with the dressing.
11. Enjoy as it is or top it with something - as you choose.
This salad was born out of one of those dilemmas. I've been working my way through Fuchsia Dunlop's excellent cook book "Every Grain Of Rice", a varied and comprehensive book of recipes Fuchsia learned in Sichuan province in her travels to China. It's a wonderful book, and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to go beyond Chinese restaurant food.
Trouble is, the book has so many recipes, it will take me months to cook my way through it! One very interesting discovery has been the salad recipes in the first chapter of "Cold Dishes". Having had a go at Lao Hu Cai (Tiger salad) a very easy to prepare cucumber and chilli salad, I was ready to try my hand at some other recipes. Trouble was, there were two I wanted to make at the same time: Xiang You Qing Dou (Sichuanese Green Soy Bean Salad) and Liang Ban Hu Dou (Sichuanese Broad Bean Salad). In the end, I decided to mash the two up. This recipe is the result.
The dressing is Fuchsia Dunlop's, as I don't know enough about Sichuanese food ingredients to invent my own. It packs a chilli punch, let me tell you! If you can't take a lot of chilli, then you will want to keep the amount of chilli oil down (1 tablespoon rather than 2) and perhaps omit the half teaspoon of sediment.
If you make it as in the recipe, it will be vegetarian and vegan. But I couldn't resist making this much more sinful. I topped it with some crispy cooked pancetta (highly irregular and extremely inauthentic). I would try steamed prawns in it next time.
Sichuan inspired pepper, carrot and broad bean salad
(Serves 2)
For the salad:
500g bag of broad beans
A third of a cucumber
Half a yellow pepper
A small carrot
Three spring onions
A handful of salad leaf (I used a bistro salad mix)
Fuchsia Dunlop's dressing:
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
Half a teaspoon caster sugar
Quarter teaspoon Chinkiang vinegar
1-2 tablespoons chilli oil with half a teaspoon of sediment
1 clove of garlic, crushed (optional - but I used it)
A few pinches of Sichuan peppercorns (optional - but I used it)
1. Double pod the broad beans. You will be amazed - the half kilo bag only gave enough broad beans for what would have been a side dish.
2. The broad beans should be blanched in boiling water for 1 minute, no longer. Drain and run cold water over them to stop the cooking.
3. Peel and chop the carrot into small cubes (around 1 cm). Chop the pepper into similar sized cubes. These should be blanched in boiling water for 1-2 minutes, no longer. Drain and run cold water over them to stop the cooking.
4. Peel the cucumber partially (in stripes along the length), scoop out the seeds/pulp. Cut into juliennes.
5. Cut the spring onions into small 7mm-1cm rounds.
6. Put all the salad ingredients into a large non-metallic bowl whilst you make the dressing.
7. Toast the Sichuan peppercorns in a dry pan until you can just about smell them. Remove from the heat. When they are no longer hot, grind them in a mortar and pestle.
8. Now mix all the dressing ingredients in a small (non-metallic) bowl. They might need a bit of a whisk to combine them.
9. Put a couple of handfuls of the salad leaf on two plates.
10. Either mix the dressing with the other ingredients (which were in the large non-metallic bowl) or put the other ingredients onto the plates and drizzle with the dressing.
11. Enjoy as it is or top it with something - as you choose.
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