It’s no secret that algorithms shape how we eat and cook. I finished Ruby Tandoh’s All Consuming last month, and one essay in particular stayed with me: her attempt to try the viral chocolate-covered strawberry at Borough Market. It felt uncomfortably familiar:

“The crowd was following a logic that nobody inside of it fully understood. Each video was the impetus for more pilgrimages, many of which ended up on social media themselves. Who knows what inspired it, or who exactly it inspired? It doesn’t matter. Things here proliferate in a non-linear way, spreading exponentially and beyond the facts.”

I’m not immune. If anything, I’m subject to multiple algorithms at once. I use Instagram and TikTok, and I scroll Chinese social media, especially Xiaohongshu (RedNote), for leisure. It’s saturated with overconsumption and status anxiety (every tenth post insists you should be learning to build an AI agent), but it’s also a great source of food content, no matter which corner of the world you are currently in. The influence of food and restaurant critics on the platform alone could fill a book.

Trends sometimes overlap, but more often, they come and go in isolation. For a few years now, I’ve seen “Goodbye Winter, Welcome to Spring” rice (冬去春来饭) pop up on my feed. It originated on the seasonal menu at Xin Rong Ji (新荣记), a high-end restaurant chain with more Michelin stars than I can count. While it’s not cheap to dine there, people on Xiaohongshu have been enthusiastically recreating this dish at home.

The idea is simple: a bridge between seasons. You take the cured meats of the winter just passed and pair them with the first arrivals of spring: small potatoes, bamboo shoots, peas, and Chinese chives.

In Berlin, in place of crisp bamboo shoots, we have our own seasonal currency: asparagus. This recipe follows the logic of clay pot rice, though a crispy bottom isn’t essential: a regular pot or rice cooker works just fine. With the same ingredients, I also made an egg fried rice, a quicker route to the same flavors.

Other Spring Things

Cherry blossoms have taken over Berlin, and resisting a photo feels almost impossible (see this meme). I met friends for coffee and went flower viewing, only to be handed a large bag of foraged Bärlauch (wild garlic). I had just posted a recipe using wild garlic I’d actually paid good money for. Still, he insisted. “Maybe just make a pesto,” he said.

Instead, I started experimenting. One batch became kimchi, adapted from Maangchi’s buchu recipe (if you’re using Red Boat fish sauce, scale it back by a third). The rest went into pancakes. It reminded me of the seasonal wontons (jicai huntun, 荠菜馄饨), in Shanghai and Hangzhou, filled with shepherd’s purse, a quintessential spring forage.

Recipe: Winter-to-Spring Rice丨冬去春来饭

Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 190 g (1 cup) white rice

• 50 g cured pork belly or bacon

• 3–4 sprigs green asparagus (90 g)

• 2 new potatoes (90 g)

• 50 g (⅓ cup) peas (fresh or frozen)

• pinch of salt

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

• 235 ml (1 cup) boiling water

• 1 tbsp light soy sauce, plus more to taste

• 1 tsp toasted sesame oil

• 1-2 tsp sweet soy sauce (optional)

• Fresh herbs such as scallions or chopped wild garlic

Instructions

1. Rinse the rice several times and soak for at least 1 hour (short- or medium-grain works best). Drain well.

2. Thinly slice the pork belly. Trim the asparagus and cut into 3–5 cm diagonal pieces. Dice the potatoes into bite-sized chunks. Thaw the peas if needed.

3. In a pot with boiling water, add a pinch of salt, blanch the peas for 1 minute, and the asparagus for about 2 minutes. Remove and set aside (add to an ice bath if you want the color to be brighter).

4. Heat a small clay or cast-iron pot over medium-low heat. Add the oil, then the pork belly, and cook for about 3 minutes, until lightly browned and the fat has rendered.

5. Add the potatoes and rice, and stir-fry briefly, about 2 minutes. Pour in the boiling water and bring to a simmer. Cook for 3–4 minutes, until most of the liquid is absorbed. Cover and cook over medium-low heat for 10 minutes.

6. Scatter the pork belly, asparagus, and peas over the rice. Cover and cook for another 3-5 minutes, until the rice is cooked through. (If you want to have the crispy bottom, see this recipe )

7. Finish with soy sauce and sesame oil, and garnish with scallions and chopped wild garlic.

Variations

• I used homemade cured Sichuan bacon (la rou). Cured meats like Cantonese sausage lap cheong, pancetta, or bacon all work well. You can, of course, skip the meat for a vegan option.

• The vegetables are flexible: try fava beans, green beans, leeks, or whatever marks the season where you are.

• If you use a rice cooker, you can skip the soaking part, add potatoes, cured pork belly, and rice, use your normal setting, and add the blanched peas and asparagus last.

Spring recipes:

I’m also hosting a second session of my Sichuan paocai + cooking workshop in Berlin on May 3rd. You’ll learn the fundamentals of Sichuan lacto-fermentation and cook fish-fragrant eggplant. It might be the last in the first half of the year, so come join us!

I might have been putting off writing this piece for a while. The thing is: even though it’s quite common, Shaoxing wine doesn’t seem that essential when it shows up in a recipe. The most common question I get is some version of: “Can I substitute Shaoxing wine?” For years, I’d say, sure, use sherry, use water, or skip it.

A year ago, I visited Shaoxing and the Chinese Yellow Wine Museum. I left the beautiful town having rethought an ingredient I’d been cooking with for a decade. Before that trip, I used Shaoxing wine because recipes told me to.

This piece is my attempt to understand what it actually does to cooking. By the end, I hope you’ll want a bottle on your shelf, if you haven’t already.

What is Shaoxing Wine

Shaoxing wine is a type of yellow wine (huang jiu 黄酒), and one of the oldest brewing traditions in Chinese history. It’s a light golden or amber liquid, sold in dark glass bottles, with a deep, caramel-like aroma and a slight sweetness. Typically, it has an alcohol content of 12% to 18%.

Yellow wine is produced across several regions. Fujian laojiu (福建老酒), for instance, is another yellow wine used in cooking. But the most famous production region is Shaoxing, in Zhejiang province, which is where the English name comes from. In English, Shaoxing wine has become shorthand for Chinese cooking wine in general. In Mandarin, the broader term for cooking wine is liao jiu (料酒), literally “condiment wine”, while wines specifically from Shaoxing are called shaoxing huangjiu (绍兴黄酒) or shaojiu (绍酒).

Shaoxing wine is traditionally made from steamed glutinous rice, two types of fermentation starter, a rice-based wine yeast starter and a wheat-based koji, and water from the local lakes. The mixture ferments in large jars, stirred daily, then is transferred to smaller jars to continue fermenting for months. It’s then pressed, heated, and aged for years. The variety used for cooking is jiafan jiu (加饭酒), also known as huadiao jiu (花雕酒), named after its decorative jars: a semi-dry wine made with extra rice for more body.

Shaoxing wine is, first and foremost, a drinking wine. In the Jiangnan region, it's served alongside meals, sometimes warmed in small cups. After baijiu (grain liquor) has dominated modern Chinese banquet tables for so long, there are signs it's having a comeback again.

A Brief History of Shaoxing Wine in Cooking

By the Qin and Han dynasties, grain-based wines were already used in cooking as winemaking advanced. Cooks figured this out long before they could scientifically explain it.

Around the 6th century, the book Qimin Yaoshu recorded uses of wine that include marinating and preserving fish, where wine was said to “repel unwanted evil taste, speed up the process, and make the food taste better”1. By the Song Dynasty, recipes for drunken crab had already appeared in Zhong Kui Lu2.

The famous Qing Dynasty cookbook by Yuan Mei put it plainly: “a skilled cook’s wine should be jiu niang, fermented sweet rice wine, with the lees removed”3. It’s used in multiple recipes, such as stir-fried mussels, steamed fish, and meat marinades, which closely resemble how we use it today.

What does Shaoxing wine do?

Alcohol is used in cooking to add flavor across cultures. It adds flavor and sometimes acidity. As I learned from this video: alcohol is excellent at dissolving and dispersing flavor compounds. Because it’s also highly volatile, it carries those aromas into the air, shaping what we smell as much as what we taste.

In Chinese cooking, shaoxing wine is used for three main reasons: removing unpleasant flavors and odors (qu xing, 去腥), adding aroma (zeng xiang, 增香), and forming the base of drunken dishes (zui, 醉).

• Remove the unpleasant odors

“Qu xing ” (去腥) or “chu shan" (除膻) describe something rarely named in Western cooking: the removal of gamey or fishy notes. These elusive off-flavors, xing and shan, show up in red meat, poultry, and seafood alike. During cooking, their odor compounds dissolve into the alcohol and evaporate along with it. What’s left behind is the ingredient’s natural aroma, simply cleaner and more focused.

That’s why Shaoxing wine appears so often in meat marinades and seafood dishes, and why it’s added to poaching liquids alongside ginger and Sichuan peppercorn, ingredients that further neutralize the unpleasant odors.

• Add aroma

Compared to red or white wine, Shaoxing wine is less acidic and slightly sweeter, but deeply aromatic. It’s packed with flavor compounds (718 of them!), including stone fruit, dried fruit, nuts, and caramel, which deepen a dish and give it a distinctive fragrance. This is mostly used in braised and stir-fry dishes to add a complex aroma.

Beyond flavor, there’s a practical technique I picked up while making Beef Chow Fun, called “flashing the wine”: In a hot wok, cooks splash Shaoxing wine along the sides, where it instantly vaporizes into a burst of steam. That steam helps cook ingredients more evenly while carrying a faintly caramelized aroma through the dish. It’s a small step, but essential for achieving wok hei.

• Drunken dishes

Along the southeastern coast and around Shanghai, there’s a whole cooking method built around Shaoxing wine: “zui,” meaning “drunken.” It uses a braising liquid of yellow wine, soy sauce, and spices to marinate raw (生醉) or cooked seafood (熟醉) and other proteins.

The most famous dishes include drunken shrimp (zuixia, 醉虾), crab (zuixie, 醉蟹), and chicken (zui ji, 醉鸡). For this method, more premium wines aged for over 10 years are used. You can find ready-made versions, zui lu (drunk-braising liquid), in some Chinese supermarkets.

How to Cook with Shaoxing Wine

Shaoxing wine appears across China, but it’s most at home in southern cuisines, Jiangnan (Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai) and Cantonese cooking in particular. Except for drunken dishes, it’s almost always used with heat. Of course, not every Chinese dish needs it, especially those that aim to keep flavors light and fresh.

In Marinades

Add Shaoxing wine to meat or fish before cooking, such as pork, chicken, beef, whole fish, or fillets. In velveting (coating protein in starch and liquid before stir-frying), it pulls double duty: adding moisture and aroma while removing unpleasant odors. Use it sparingly, usually less than 1 tablespoon per dish.

• Sichuan meatball soup

• Shanghai scallion oil noodles with braised porklet

• Stir-fried pork slivers with pickled mustard

In Braises and Stir-Fries

For braises, the amount is flexible, anywhere from 1 tablespoon to ½ cup. In dishes like red-braised pork (Hong Shao Rou), it’s used generously. In braises, it’s normally added at the start of braising. The alcohol cooks off over time, leaving an aroma behind.

It can also act as a thinning liquid for thick pastes like fermented tofu or soybean paste, adding more flavor than water. In Beijing-style fried sauce noodles, zhajiangmian, it’s used to thin out dry soy bean paste (干黄酱).

In stir-fries, especially vegetables, add a small amount along the wok wall toward the end of cooking over high heat, so it evaporates quickly, and the steam helps cook the dish.

• Braised chicken with mushrooms

• Braised beef with daikon and tofu skin

• Furu braised ribs

• Braised large shrimps

In Poaching Liquids and Lu Shui

For dishes like Sichuan mouth-watering chicken or husband-and-wife beef slices, add 1–2 tablespoons to the poaching or braising liquid (lu shui, 卤水). This helps reduce gamey flavors, especially in cuts like ox tongue, chicken feet, or heart.

• Sichuan mouthwatering chicken

• Husband and wife lung slices (no lungs actually)

Choosing Shaoxing wine

At a Chinese grocery, you’ll likely see a few different options. The main thing to know: there’s a difference between pure Shaoxing wine (绍兴黄酒) and condiment cooking wine (liaojiu, 料酒). I cooked with liaojiu for years before switching to pure shaoxing wine, and the difference is noticeable.

My recommendation: a pure, aged Shaoxing wine with a short ingredient list: wheat, rice, water, and possibly salt and caramel (Note that wines imported to the US are often salted to be sold as a condiment rather than alcohol). The bottle I use most is aged three years and costs about 3–4 euros at my local Asian grocer in Berlin (the middle one in the picture below).

If you want to go further, Guyue Longshan (古越龙山), one of Shaoxing’s heritage producers, makes wines aged up to 20 years.

I tested three types of Shaoxing wine side by side: a 5-year-aged Gueyue Longshan wine from Shaoxing, a 3-year-aged wine, and “zero additives” Liaojiu (probably aged less than a year) from Berlin’s Asian grocery stores. The color tells you a lot; liaojiu is the palest and mildest, with a faint spice undertone despite the “zero-additives” label. The other two are darker and more complex.

All three can work in most Chinese recipes (liaojiu is too mild for drunken dishes), but the first two, 3, and 5-year-aged wines are better and can be consumed as a drink, while you wouldn’t want to drink the liaojiu on its own. A good rule of thumb is this: if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it.

Substitutes

If you’ve read this far, just buy a bottle. It’s inexpensive, keeps well, and nothing else quite replicates it. Buwei Yang Chao suggests dry sherry as a substitute, and it’s the most reliable option I’ve seen.

If you’re avoiding alcohol entirely:

• For marinades (1 tsp–1 tbsp): skip it or replace with water

• For braises (¼ cup or more): use water or low-sodium stock

That said, speaking as someone with a low alcohol tolerance (I can barely handle a small glass of wine), I’ve never felt any effect from using Shaoxing wine in cooking.

Hi, happy spring!

Working in food in the past 8 years has made me hyper-sensitive to seasonal produce. Almost overnight, like a clock suddenly reset (summer/winter time still confuses me), I find myself adjusting to a new landscape of spring abundance.

When I spotted Bärlauch (ramps) at the farmer’s market, I almost screamed.

Bärlauch is the German name for ramps or wild garlic (Allium ursinum). My introduction to it was entirely in Germany. I even assumed it was a European herb that the Chinese diaspora had cleverly adopted as a substitute for Chinese garlic chives, 韭菜 (Allium tuberosum). Then, last spring in the Sichuan countryside, I tasted something astonishingly similar: “deer-ear chive”, 鹿耳韭 (Allium ovalifolium). Wild alliums like these are foraged and used across regions such as Yunnan and Sichuan.

If you’ve been here a while, you might notice: every March, I make something with Bärlauch or chives, pan-fried crispy egg and ramp dumplings, tofu and chive pockets, and pancakes.

This year, it’s something especially simple: a Chinese omelet with preserved daikon radish. In China, wild herbs and flowers are just as abundant in spring, and the simplest way to enjoy them is often to fry them with eggs, whether it’s goji leaves, shepherd’s purse, Scotch broom, or toon leaves.

This recipe is based on cai pu dan (菜脯蛋), also known as chai poh neng, a classic dish in Teochew, Minnan, and Taiwanese cooking. Preserved daikon radish, called caipu (菜脯), gives the dish its signature salty crunch. It’s a nostalgic, home-style dish often described as “古早味”, a “disappearing taste of the past.” According to writer Huang Wanling (黄婉玲), it was originally a way to use up not-so-fresh eggs, with the aged radish providing depth and flavor.

I first came across this dish in China: The Cookbook by Kei Lum Chan last year, around the same time caipu became a staple in my kitchen (when I worked through a few common preserved vegetables). I kept returning to this recipe, sometimes with scallions, sometimes with chives, sometimes just eggs and radish.

Chinese chives and eggs alone are already a classic pairing (韭菜煎蛋). So naturally, when I got my hands on the ramps earlier this month, I started adding them to the mix. They are tender and fragrant, a bit lighter than Chinese chives, and I love how they pair with the golden, fluffy eggs. The preserved radish adds bursts of saltiness and crunch, making each bite more interesting.

The season of ramps can be notoriously short. Here in Berlin, it probably only lasts for a few weeks. But this recipe is a keeper. If ramps are out of season, you can use Chinese garlic chives or simply scallions (use about 1 scallion)—you’ll get equally delicious results.

Recipe: Preserved Radish Omelet with ramps 丨菜脯野韭菜烘蛋 (Caipu Yejiucai Hongdan)

Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp (25g) caipu (preserved radish)

• 1 tsp cornstarch

• 1 tbsp water

• 1 cup loosely packed ramps or Chinese chives (approx. 50g)

• 3 medium eggs

• ½ tsp salt

• ½ tsp sesame oil

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil

Instructions

1. Chop the preserved radish into small, pea-sized pieces, add to a small bowl, then soak in water for about 10 minutes to remove excess salt. Drain well.

2. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch with water. Let it settle, then carefully pour off the excess water, leaving behind the hydrated starch.

3. Trim the ends of the ramps (or chives), then cut into roughly 2-inch lengths.

4. Heat 1 teaspoon of oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the caipu and fry until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the ramps (or chives) and cook for another minute. Remove from the pan and set aside to let cool (until not hot anymore)

5. In a bowl, beat the eggs, then stir in the hydrated starch, salt, and sesame oil. Add the cooked radish and greens, and mix well.

6. Heat the remaining oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, lower the heat slightly and pour in the egg mixture; the edges should puff up immediately. Gently push the set edges toward the center so the uncooked egg can flow to the edges and make contact with the pan. Cook for about 1 minute, until the bottom is golden brown and the top is runny but mostly set. Carefully flip with a big spatula and cook the other side for another minute. Remove and serve with white rice.

Tips and variations

• Caipu (菜脯): You can find caipu in large Asian grocery stores or online under names like “preserved radish” or “dried radish”. It’s often sold both whole (which I prefer) and pre-chopped. Substitutes include non-spicy luobogan (萝卜干) from Sichuan or Hangzhou, or mild zhacai. Caipu is also great in fried rice, as a topping for noodles (like Wuhan’s hot dry noodles), or even in pad thai. Soaking it in the water can remove excess salt.

  Read more here:

• The key to getting golden, puffed edges on the eggs is using a generous amount of oil (about 1½ tablespoons) and making sure it’s properly hot before adding the mixture. I tested this in a wok, a 26 cm pan, and a 24 cm pan (you can use stainless steel or cast iron as well), and preferred the smallest one. A smaller pan and a large spatula make flipping easier, but if you’re not comfortable flipping, you can also cook it like softly set scrambled eggs.

  

More recipes you can use ramps or chives:

I consider the city a home base. As a native Sichuanese, I lived here during my undergraduate years in the early 2010s and have visited/lived here countless times throughout my life, from back when the skyscrapers in the south were farmlands.

For all its culinary richness and fiercely competitive restaurant scene, Chengdu can be surprisingly difficult to navigate. Viral hotspots, glowing ratings, and long lines don’t always signal true quality. Trends rise and fade, but the city ultimately rewards those who know where to look: in the neighborhood restaurants that quietly endure.

Over the past years, I’ve collected a list of food spots from personal experience, along with recommendations from family, friends, the internet, and a lot of eating. After my most recent visit three months ago, I decided to write everything down in a detailed guide, a process that took much longer than I expected.

What follows is a curated list of more than 40 locations, spanning local Sichuan eateries, noodles and wontons, hot pots, skewers, grilled fish, local markets, coffee &tea, and a handful of places worth going out of your way for, along with practical tips on what to order and how to eat like a local. Plus, a few areas I recommend staying in.

How to Use This Guide

The easiest way to navigate is with Apple Maps, AMap (Gaode Ditu/高德地图), or Dazhong Dianping (大众点评, China’s equivalent of Yelp, abbreviated as Dianping), all as phone apps. You can copy and paste the Chinese name or the addresses into your map of choice to find the route and opening time, or in your taxi app. Most places only have Chinese menus, but often include pictures. Many also use QR codes for the menu; you’ll need Alipay or WeChat (essential for paying anywhere), which can auto-translate them.

I’d recommend choosing one or two places from each category that are close to your stay.

(This guide is way too long for email, so check it in the browser for the best experience)

Local Sichuan Restaurants

This category covers classic Sichuan dishes like mapo tofu and kung pao chicken, usually served with rice. I trust those that have been around for over a decade and are popular with locals. Most are small, family-run places, known as “fly restaurants” (苍蝇馆子), and some are a bit more upscale.

My general rule for ordering: three dishes for two people, four dishes for three people, and so on. Try to balance meat, vegetables, and a soup. Most spots offer white rice, hot tea, and a small plate of paocai for free.

Yongle Fandian丨永乐饭店

One of Chengdu’s most popular Sichuan eateries, founded in 1985 and now in the hands of its second generation. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this place, including a podcast where the owner deep-dived on how they meticulously treat ingredients like pork kidney to give it the best taste and texture. Happy to report that the hype is real.

My recommendations include tender stir-fried pork kidney and liver (肝腰合炒), well-seasoned and soft steamed pork ribs in sticky rice (糯米排骨), and rich and savory twice-cooked pork (外婆回锅肉). The house-made Sichuan pickles paocai (free) is bright, balanced, a telling of the kitchen’s standards. The pork meatball soup (圆子汤) and kung pao chicken (宫保鸡丁) are also widely recommended. Be prepared to wait: the restaurant does not take reservations. For the best chance at a table, arrive at opening, around 11 a.m. on a weekday.

Address: 肖家河中街36号 (Apple Map, A Map, Dianping)

Daijiang Caotang丨带江草堂

A 70-year-old institution, formerly known as Zou Silver Carp, Daijiang Caotang preserves some of the Sichuan cooking that has faded from modern menus: delicate “xuehua jinao” (雪花鸡淖), in which chicken breast is pounded into a tofu-like consistency as light as snow; glossy sweet soy-cured pork belly (太白酱肉), tea-smoked duck (樟茶鸭), and a signature silver carp braised with lots of garlic (大蒜鲢鱼). Close to Kuanzhai Alley.

Address: 金牛区西安北路 (Apple Maps, A Map, Dianping)

Pan Xiang Shi 丨盘飨市

Tucked into the backstreets near Chunxi Road, Chengdu’s busiest shopping strip, this place is known for lucai, 卤菜 (spice-braised deli meats) since the 1930s, and locals still crowd the front counter for daily takeaway. But you can also grab a seat inside. Order the lu pin (卤拼), a mixed platter of braised meats. I had some of the best braised ribs here, and if you want something more showstopper (and nostalgic)? Order crispy rice cracker served with the sweet-and-sour pork dish (锅巴肉片).

Address: 锦江区华兴正街62号 (Apple Map, A Map, Dianping)

Read more

The most famous, of course, is Maotai (also spelled Moutai) itself. This prestige liquor brand (with an average cost of around 300 euros) has built one of the world’s largest museums dedicated to drinking culture, along with the largest statue of a baijiu bottle, according to Guinness World Records. People joke that Maotai is "Barbie Land for middle-aged Chinese men." It turns out that’s not far off. My dad, who has never shown much interest in museums, read every label word-for-word, paying more attention than he ever did at the Louvre.

In town, everyone wants to sell you their liquor. Even at the restaurant where we ate suantang yu (酸汤鱼)—a fish hot pot made with a fermented chili and wild tomato broth—the owner tried to pitch us their private-label liquor. My mind, meanwhile, kept drifting to chilies.

An easy way to put Guizhou on the culinary map is to mention that Lao Gan Ma was born here. The province was among the earliest regions in China to adopt chili peppers as a food substitute for salt (read more here)1. Today, it produces more chilies than anywhere else in China, fueling a multi-billion-dollar industry.2

Guizhou shares many culinary traditions with neighboring Sichuan: a love for douhua, fermented soybeans, and the sticky, pounded chili pastes found in Sichuanese kitchens. Even the dialect is similar enough that I could speak Sichuanese without friction in some places. At the same time, the province is home to many ethnic minority groups with their own distinct food traditions.

It’s a place that feels familiar, yet remains constantly inspiring.

While Zunyi is best known for its spirit industry and its pivotal role in the Long March, it isn’t usually celebrated as a food destination in the way the provincial capital, Guiyang, is. However, Zunyi produces the lion’s share of the province’s chili peppers and houses the country’s largest chili trading hub: China Chili City (中国辣椒城).

watch the video

Zoumaba Market: A Guizhou Pantry

We came to the Zoumaba market in central Zunyi. In winter, stalls overflow with seasonal delicacies: pea shoots, fish mint, and cai tai (a stem from the Brassica rapa family). You'll find baskets of fresh rice noodles in various shapes and slabs of tofu.

What caught my eye most were the dried chilies: long erjingtiao (二荆条), wrinkled zoujiao (皱椒), chubby lantern chilies (灯笼椒), and fiery facing-heaven chilies (朝天椒). Guizhou locals are creative in using chilies through three primary preparations:

• Ciba Lajiao (糍粑辣椒): Sticky chili paste. Dried chilies are soaked and pounded with ginger and garlic into a thick, “sticky rice” paste. When fried in oil, it becomes the soul of Guizhou’s local chili oil, you lajiao (油辣椒). It’s used widely in everyday cooking.

• Zao Lajiao (糟辣椒 ): Pickled fresh chilies. Fresh red chilies are chopped and fermented with salt, baijiu, young ginger, and garlic. This provides the bright, sharp base for the beloved red sour soup, hong suantang (红酸汤).

• Hu Lajiao (糊辣椒): Scorched chili flakes. Whole dried chilies are toasted over (or directly in) charcoal until blackened, then hand-rubbed or pounded into flakes. My Guizhou friend explained they are roasted to different “levels,” much like coffee beans: lighter roasts for dipping sauces and darker, smokier roasts for rice noodles.

There are also charred green peppers (烧青椒), which are used in cold dishes and dips, along with various chili oils and spiced chili flakes.

Besides the fresh ingredients, I noticed a variety of fermented and pickled vegetables here: radish, radish greens, and mustard stems. One stall owner let me try his suan cai (酸菜). Unlike the saltier and older Sichuan versions used in fish stew, this one was only lightly sour and fresh.

Historically, Guizhou had limited access to salt. The region didn’t produce it, and the mountains made transport difficult. That scarcity inspired local palates to lean towards spicy and sour tastes and shaped their fermentation traditions. Instead of salt brines, vegetables are often fermented in a thin slurry made from corn or rice flour, rice soup, whey from tofu-making, or broth from cooked vegetables. Sometimes the mustard is blanched before fermentation. The ready-fermented liquid is then reused as a starter for future batches.

Fermented soybeans also appear in several forms. Unlike Cantonese douchi, Guizhou’s version traditionally ferments yellow soybeans covered in leaves from the iris plant without salt. After fermenting, they may be sold wet as shi douchi (湿豆豉), with a sticky texture similar to natto. They can be further sun-dried and seasoned as gan douchi (干豆豉), or soaked in water with chili flakes to make shui douchi (水豆豉), a condiment often used in dipping sauces (Lao Gan Ma even sells a version). At the market, vendors layered douchi with herbs like fish mint and cilantro, forming something like a savory “cake” that could be scooped straight into dipping sauce. Meat is fermented too; some stalls at the market sell a fermented meat dish called suan zu rou (酸酢肉), sliced pork marinated with salt, then coated in flour to ferment in jars for weeks.

Sister’s Laziji

Most visitors—including me—come to the market for one dish: Guizhou-style laziji (辣子鸡), chili chicken at a small stall down a side street.

Unlike the Chongqing or Sichuan versions, which feature deep-fried chicken tossed with dried chilies, Zunyi’s version braises chicken pieces in a red-oil sauce built on ciba lajiao. Along with doubanjiang, it creates a deep, layered flavor. The first bite isn’t overwhelmingly hot, but the heat builds as you keep eating.

As I wrote in my recipe for laziji on the Mala Market blog: “Sister’s laziji was in full swing: Two aunties were breaking down chickens with astonishing speed and ferrying piles of chopped meat to a cart, while a small team of cooks tended a dozen big woks, stirring with meticulous focus. Each order was cooked from scratch, which meant a 40-minute wait. The finished dish arrived in a stainless-steel bowl, the chicken bathed in a deep red chili sauce. Fried then braised, the pieces emerged with crisp, caramelized edges and moist, tender centers. We also ordered potatoes and moyu (魔芋, konjac tofu), added to the chicken. The sauce was spicy but not overwhelming, with lots of depth and aroma thanks to a base of ciba chili, a pounded chili paste. For my family, raised on Sichuan’s version of lazi ji, the dish was familiar yet just different enough to be really intriguing and keep us coming back for more, bite after bite, filling our bowls with more and more white rice. ”

Douhua Mian: Tofu Noodles to Dip

Not far from the market, I went searching for douhua mian (豆花面), wheat noodles topped with fresh tofu and served with a complex dipping sauce. At Liu Cheng Ku Douhua Mian, the finger-wide noodles arrive in a light broth with silky slabs of tofu.

The bowl looks deceptively mild, but the dipping sauce (zhan shui) is spicy, rich, and aromatic. The base is chili oil, made from—you guessed it, ciba lajiao—then combined with fried pork cubes, Chinese chives, spearmint, and peanuts. While it traces its lineage back to Buddhist kitchens of the late Qing dynasty, the modern version you’d find in Guizhou is added with fried pork and lard. Besides the dipping version (蘸水豆花面), the shop also serves a dry-tossed version (干馏豆花面), accompanied by a light soy drink.

Home-style Dishes

We couldn’t leave without a meal of everyday dishes in which Guizhou’s chili condiments appear in more nuanced ways. Since there isn’t much traditional sightseeing in Zunyi, we walked 3.5 kilometers across town to Wanghai’s Home Dishes, a local institution that has been around for three decades. The second-generation owner, roughly my age, with a young son already running around the dining room, generously invited us into the back kitchen. He showed me their mise en place of chili condiments: dried chili, ciba lajiao, zao lajiao, doubanjiang, and their secret chili paste.

One cook was whipping up a quick stir-fry of pork with garlic stems (糟辣背筋). He added a spoonful of zao lajiao, giving the pork a bright tartness and gentle heat. While Sichuan cooking also uses pickled chilies in dishes like fish-fragrant pork slivers, this Guizhou version tasted noticeably fresher and lighter.

Another signature dish was qingcai niurou (青菜牛肉), beef slivers stir-fried with bok choy in doubanjiang and ciba chili paste. There was also Guizhou-style mashed potatoes (脆哨土豆泥), mixed with lightly scorched dried chilies, crispy fried pork cubes (a Guiyang snack and condiment called cui shao 脆哨), and pickled long beans. The result was chunky, savory, and with fun textures to chew on.

To finish, we had a soup of fermented mustard greens with small red rice beans (酸菜豆米汤), tasting mild and soothing.

China Chili City

About a 30-minute drive away from Zunyi city lies a town called Xiazi (虾子镇), home to China Chili City, the world’s largest chili trading center.

Guizhou’s mountainous terrain and mild, humid climate create ideal conditions for growing chilies, especially fragrant, moderately spicy varieties like erjingtiao and wrinkled chilies. Some come from Zunyi itself, such as the fiery facing-heaven chili, while others grow nearby, wrinkled chilies from Dafang and bullet-head chilies from Suiyang, among others from places like Huaxi across the province.

I had imagined CCC as a vibrant bazaar with rows of stalls selling bags of peppers to take home. Instead, it’s a B2B wholesale complex. During the off-season, it was quiet. A group of aunties sorted piles of dried chilies while workers packed them for shipment (Saint Cavish’s video captured the beautiful bts of the production).

As I wandered through the warehouse aisles, one wholesaler called out:
“Boss, how many hundreds of kilos do you want?” (老板, 你要几百斤？)

I was thinking more along the lines of a few hundred grams.

Still, the mountains of chilies were impressive. Nearby, we found a company willing to sell micro quantities. We bought several kinds, including the three I use most at home, erjingtiao, lantern chilies, and wrinkled chilies, all mild in heat but intensely fragrant to make chili oil.

Goat Meat Rice Noodles

For Zunyi locals, Xiazi is better known for its goat-meat rice noodles (羊肉粉). At Min’s Goat Noodles, it was already past 10 a.m. on a weekday morning, yet the shop was still bustling with eaters. The menu was simple: goat noodles, with two types of rice noodles to choose from, thick round cu mifen (粗米粉) or flat mipi (米皮), steamed and cut rice noodle rolls that resemble thick pho. You could add extras like more meat, offal, fried egg, or braised tofu.

I ordered mifen with extra offal. The fresh rice noodles and thin slices of goat were quickly blanched in a large pot of boiling broth, then topped with chili oil, scorched chili flakes, and chopped green garlic. The noodles were bouncy and slippery, paired with soft-stewed offal and hulajiao that added a beautiful smoky aroma more than heat.

The whole bowl carried a rich scent of goat. But not what you’d expect when you hear goat.

In Chinese cooking, lamb and goat are often considered gamey and unpleasant, known as shan (膻). Here, though, the flavor was clean and concentrated, thanks to a long-simmered goat bone broth and chili oil made with goat fat. My mom ordered the Mipi version, which had a slightly softer, chewier bite than the round noodles.

When I come across a dish I love, I usually make a mental note: I’ll try to recreate this in my Berlin kitchen. That was the case with laziji and several of the stir-fries we ate along the way.

With this truly GOAT bowl (sorry, I couldn’t resist), though, I’m not so sure. It belongs to this place.

But maybe.

This concludes our road trip in December last year, which started from Neijiang, through Luzhou, and ended in Chongqing. The travel series will continue with Yunnan in a couple of weeks, but we will have some fun new recipes and a pantry deep dive in between.

In Sichuan, the dish is often made with red-skinned, white-fleshed “blush radish” (胭脂萝卜) or watermelon radish known as “beauty from inside” (心里美萝卜), with its pale green skin and vivid pink center. In Berlin, where I live now, my options used to be limited to small red radishes or large white daikon. Recently, though, my farmers’ market and Asian grocer have begun carrying light purple daikon and green Korean radish, both sturdier and crunchier varieties that work beautifully for making this dish.

The dressing is inspired by the classic málà / 麻辣 or hóngyóu / 红油 (red-oil) dressing used in many Sichuan cold dishes. The difference is subtle: mala versions include Sichuan pepper for its signature numbing fragrance, while hongyou leans more heavily on chili oil (sometimes with the addition of sweet soy sauce).

The final dressing formula I landed works with a range of crunchy vegetables. Radish is traditional, but celtuce, carrots, celery, or kohlrabi all take well to the bright, balanced, and spicy sauce.

For a more colorful platter, combine vegetables of different colors. A mix of daikon, carrot, and celtuce, for example, turns the dish into ban sansi (拌三丝), or “dressed three slivers.” In the tips below, you’ll also find a heartier variation that adds protein.

It’s perfect alongside rice and other dishes, but it also brings a refreshing crunch to richer foods. While testing the recipe, I found myself pairing it with everything from lasagna and pasta to roasted potatoes. Now that spring is arriving, and radishes are at their best, I suspect it will stay in regular rotation in my kitchen, even though I’ve already made it five times in the past weeks.

What to expect after the paywall: the full recipe, plus my tips on Sichuan pepper (different usage on vegetables and meat), preparing garlic, and how to cut each vegetable.

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Recipe for Mala crunchy radish丨凉拌萝卜 (Liángbàn Luóbo)

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My grandmas’ decades of experience didn’t include dealing with this kind of cold. In Sichuan, it rarely drops below 0°C. Luckily, I got some helpful tips from the Sichuan diaspora, like Charlene from @thebaodega and Kathy from @Wei Collective. I ended up rotating the pork between the fridge, the balcony, and a cold room with an electric fan.

It required constant maintenance and checking the weather almost hourly. But it also made me realize how much work goes into something I took for granted my whole life. I had to laugh a little and told my family that I should have shown a little more appreciation next time when I am served larou.

While it might take me many years to say that I master larou making, I’m sharing what I’ve learned so far.

What is Larou?

Làròu (腊肉) simply means cured meat. In Sichuan, it’s one of the most important New Year foods, but also enjoyed throughout the year. Across southern China1, you’ll find many versions, from Cantonese lap yuk to the famous Jinhua ham, which has existed for over 800 years.

Historically, meat was cured with salt and wine (or wine lees). Spices and sauces were added later. In Sichuan, that often means Sichuan pepper. In Cantonese or Zhejiang-style cured meat, soy sauce is more common (which is also called jiang rou, 酱肉). In some places, wind-cured pork is also called feng rou (风肉, wind meat) or xian rou (咸肉, salted meat).

Even if you don’t plan to make it yourself, consider this a nudge to cook with it more often. You can sometimes find it at Asian grocery stores, especially the Cantonese version. Larou adds depth and savoriness to stir-fried vegetables like cauliflower and cabbage, to rice dishes like clay pot rice and Shanghai-style vegetable rice, and even to bao and dumpling fillings. I sometimes use pancetta or bacon as a substitute in stir-fries, but it never quite matches the taste of Chinese larou.

Larou Making in Sichuan

Larou is usually made during la yue (腊月), the last month of the Chinese calendar before the New Year. It’s closely tied to the countryside tradition of sha nian zhu (杀年猪), the annual pig slaughter, normally happening in the second half of the month. The home-raised pigs are fully grown and ready for the feast, and the rest of the meat is cured for the months ahead.

According to local records, this tradition in Sichuan, so ubiquitous nowadays, dates back to the Qing Dynasty. Larou was prepared for the New Year and for the busy farming season, likely introduced by migrants to the province.2

Like many Chinese foods, it’s also born out of scarcity. My parents told me that in the 70s and 80s, when fresh meat wasn’t always easy to get, cured meat added protein and flavor to daily meals.

While you can buy larou from the produce market and online, many families still make it at home. The process is similar across households. Pork, most commonly belly, but also head, tongue, tail, and leg, is cut into large pieces. It’s first rubbed with baijiu, then with a dry mix of toasted salt, Sichuan pepper, and other spices. After marinating for 5-7 days, it’s wind-dried for 7–14 days, depending on temperature and humidity. Some families smoke it (mine doesn’t). Most Sichuan la rou is dry-brined, though there are versions made with sweet flour sauce or soy sauce, called jiang rou (酱肉).

Back in January, I visited a restaurant owned by a family acquaintance that has specialized in larou for decades. They work from November to January around the Chinese New Year and prepare enough for the entire year. When I visited, they had just bought 100 kilos of pork from a nearby county known for heritage farmhouse pork. They rub the meat with baijiu and sweet fermented rice brine. Along with the standard dry rub, they add chili flakes and grape sugar. The legs marinate in large, tightly packed containers for 20 days, and the ribs and pork belly marinate for 10 days. After that, everything is sent to a smoking cottage in the countryside and smoked with Chinese cypress branches for a week.

The finished products are steamed and served on charcuterie platters, stewed with dried long beans, or used as filling for pumpkin dumplings, which I once tried to recreate three years ago.

How to Make Larou from Scratch at Home

Back in Berlin, I used ready-made seasoning packs (I normally go for the brand Haorenjia or Jingong) for the past few years. This year, I made my own dry rub, based on advice from the Larou restaurant and a few Sichuan cookbooks I own.

I use 3–4% salt based on the weight of the pork3. The restaurant uses around 7%, since their cuts are much larger.

Recipe for Homemade Sichuan Larou丨四川腊肉

Ingredients

• 2500 g skin-on pork belly

• 7 g whole Sichuan pepper

• 2 g Chinese cinnamon stick (cassia bark)

• 8 g star anise

• 5 g fennel seeds

• 10 g white sugar

• 90 g salt

• About 30 g Chinese baijiu (or vodka)

Tools:

large bowls, clothes drying rack, s-hooks (curtain hooks), bamboo or metal skewer sticks, kitchen twine

Instructions

1. In a small frying pan, add all the spices first, and fry over medium heat for about 5 minutes until fragrant. Remove and let cool, then add to a spice grinder (or a pestle) and blend into coarse powder. Add the salt to the same pan, toast until the salt turns yellow, let cool, and mix with the spices.

2. Cut the pork belly into 5 thick slabs, each weighing about 400-500 grams and 5-7 cm thick. In a baking sheet or a big bowl, rub all sides with Chinese baijiu.

3. In a big pot or mixing bowl, rub each pork belly thoroughly with the spice salt mixture until evenly distributed.

4. Tightly pack in the pot or bowl, cover with plastic wrap, then store in the fridge to marinate for 5 days. Each day, take out the pot and flip the pieces, making sure that all parts of the pork are marinated.

5. Cut about 30 cm of the kitchen twine, make a knot on top of a metal or wooden skewer, then poke through the thick fat part of the pork. Repeat until the pork is threaded twice and make a knot.

6. Use S-hooks to hang the pork on a cloth drying rack. Let the pork wind-dry in a dry and cold environment, about 0-10ºC for about 7-14 days, or longer.

7. When the larou is dried and hardened, lost about 30% of its moisture and shows no sign of mold or spoilage. The pork smells fragrant and not sour.

8. To cook them, rinse the dust of larou with warm water, cut it into half or three pieces, add them to a pot with cold water, bring to a boil, and cook them for about 35-40 minutes, until it’s easy to poke through with a chopstick. The rest can be portioned (raw) into smaller cubes, vacuumed, and frozen.

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Tips for Making La Rou at Home

Choosing the pork

Use a whole piece, or thick pieces of fresh, high-quality pork belly with good marbling, ideally about half fat and half lean. I normally go to the local butcher to get this instead of the supermarket.

Spices

Salt and Sichuan pepper are the basics, but I also added a few more common spices used in Chinese cooking. I prefer whole spices, toasted and ground, because the flavor is stronger. One cookbook suggests using 10 grams of Chinese five-spice powder instead.

Drying Conditions

Just like making the sausages, the best drying condition for larou is a cold, dry place with good air flow, with the temperature of 0º-10ºC (30-50ºF) and humidity less than 90%. December and January are ideal in milder climates, but always check the weather before you begin (a mistake I made this year). Sichuan households normally put it on the balcony or outdoors in the yard, which is what I did.

However, if you don’t have an outdoor space or perfect conditions:

• If you don’t have a balcony or yard, use an unheated room or garage within the same temperature range. An electric fan helps increase airflow.

• If the weather turns extremely cold or wet, bring the pork inside and let it dry in the fridge. Place it on a rack so air can circulate. Move it back outside when conditions improve.

has also shared great tips in her guide to wind-cured duck.

Smoking the Meat

I don’t smoke the meat myself, as my family does. But if you want to smoke it, you can use the technique from Mei @daywithmei, who did a cold smoker with her steamer, and Kathy’s method in a wok, both are great resources in Sichuan cooking!

Cooking with Larou

Unlike salami and prosciutto, lardo can’t be eaten raw. It needs to be cooked first, which is why it’s dried for a shorter time than Italian cured meats. It’s usually boiled or steamed and served with rice and other dishes, especially around Chinese New Year.

It’s also used in stir-fries and soups. In Sichuan, it’s often paired with vegetables like garlic greens (蒜苗), garlic scapes(蒜苔), green peppers, cabbage, or dried mushrooms. It can also be added to rice with peas to make kong fan (箜饭), and sometimes we just dice the leftover and add it to the rice cooker. When my grandma serves cured pork leg or trotter, she cooks daikon or dried radish in the same pot. That way, we also get a flavorful soup.

My favorite way to eat it is a simple stir-fry:

Slice 150–200 grams of cooked larou and pat dry. Stir-fry with 2 cloves of garlic, 1 red chili, and 1 leek (or handful of garlic scape or 1/4 pointed cabbage). Season lightly with salt and a pinch of sugar, keeping in mind the pork is already salty.

Use the larou in these recipes:

When I wrote my guide to Chinese preserved and fermented vegetables last year (one of my most popular pieces here on Substack), I left out one big category: lacto-fermented vegetables. For one, they deserve their own lengthy deep dive. On the other hand, they’re also mostly homemade in China and harder to find in Asian grocery stores than zhacai or yacai.

In Sichuan, they’re called paocai (泡菜), a staple of Sichuan cooking and daily meals. So much so that if you go to a local restaurant, it almost feels wrong if they don’t serve some paocai on the side. When I first moved to Berlin 10 years ago, my dad even wanted me to pack a water-seal glass jar in my luggage (of course, I didn’t).

I finally started my own jar last year (inspired by the beautiful videos from ). Since then, I’ve been experimenting with various vegetables, keeping notes and taking photos as the jar evolves. I visited the Sichuan Paocai Museum in Meishan, Sichuan, and tasted one of the best paocai at a century-old restaurant. During my trip across Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou, I also sampled different types of fermented and pickled vegetables.

As a freelance recipe developer and content creator, I spend most of my time alone in my small kitchen or at my laptop. For a while now, I’ve wanted to bring this work into a more shared, hands-on space. So earlier this year, I reached out to Polly from Qu Fermentation Studio, whom I first connected with four or five years ago. She does amazing work focused on fermentation, both through her workshops and as head of fermentation at the restaurant Oukan. I’m always flipping through her stories and admiring her experiments with meigancai, red rice yeast, and even century eggs.

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I’m so excited that we’ll be hosting a workshop together, here in Berlin.

We’ll share what we know about paocai and show you how to start your own jar. We’ll also cook one of my favorite Sichuan dishes, yuxiang qiezi (鱼香茄子, fish-fragrant eggplant), using pickled chilis. And of course, we’ll sit down and eat together.

Our March 29th session was a hit, so we’re doing it again on May 3rd! We still have some spots left—come join us!

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Sichuan Cooking & Infinite Paocai Pickles

Join Chinese culinary writer and recipe developer Xueci Cheng and fermentation expert Polly Yim for a hands-on workshop exploring the culture, history, and everyday magic of Sichuan paocai.

In this three-hour class, you’ll learn the basics of Sichuan pickling and how to start and maintain your own “infinity” pickle jar—an endlessly renewable staple in Sichuan home kitchens. You’ll also cook a classic dish, fish-fragrant eggplant (鱼香茄子), and see how paocai adds depth, balance, and brightness to everyday meals.

The class ends with a shared meal. You’ll leave with a deeper understanding of Sichuan flavors, practical cooking skills, and your own jar of fermented vegetables to take home.

Note: Vegan and vegetarian options are available. Please let us know about any dietary restrictions when you register.

Location: Satellit, Weinstraße 11, 10249 Berlin
Date: May 3rd
Course Time: 16-19hr
65 EUR

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Berlin is still deep in winter, and it’s probably one of the coldest winters I’ve experienced since moving here a decade ago. I thought I had gotten used to the colder climate, but -10ºC for weeks straight, with snow and icy roads, is another level. I’m what Germans call a Frostbeule (someone who freezes easily), so when temperatures drop like this, my cravings narrow to one thing: soup.

After a few bowls of Korean yukgaejang and Vietnamese Bun Rieu out, I really wanted to make chicken soup at home. More specifically, chicken with mushrooms. So I dug out my heavy cast-iron pot and went to the supermarket to get a whole chicken. On the way, I comically slid on the icy road in slow motion. Still, I felt a little healed once the soup was heating on the stove.

Chicken and mushrooms are a classic pairing in Chinese cooking, whether stir-fried, braised, in congee, or folded into soups. In Yunnan, I once had a mushroom hot pot built on chicken broth, with more than twenty varieties of cultivated and wild mushrooms. For this version, I use dried shiitake and morels (羊肚菌), which I brought back from Kunming. As they simmer, they release a deep aroma that transforms a simple chicken broth into something layered.

It’s comforting on its own, but also endlessly versatile. The broth can double as a base for noodles, rice noodles, or wontons. Or, as I like to serve it, ladled over rice as jitang fan (鸡汤饭).

In Chengdu’s Yulin neighborhood, the long-running restaurant Yuzibu (玉滋补) serves rice soaked in slow-stewed chicken broth with dried almond mushrooms, alongside sweet water noodles and pickles. You’ll often find chicken soup rice on the menus of small eateries that specialize in spicy dishes like boboji, cool skewers bathed in chili oil, where a mild, nourishing bowl of broth offers balance.

When I was studying at Sichuan University, one of my favorite meals was skewers at a tiny south gate spot called Chongqing Senlin, followed by either jitang fan or doutang fan (豆汤饭), the latter is rice topped with soft stewed yellow peas.

In China, mature hens (老母鸡) are prized for their depth of flavor. In Berlin, I choose between a young corn-fed chicken, which cooks in about an hour and yields tender meat, or a firmer soup hen (Suppenhuhn) that benefits from a longer simmer. If you can find silkie chicken (乌骨鸡), even more elite.

Ginger, scallion, and Sichuan pepper are my constants. In small amounts, the pepper won’t numb, but simply adds a gentle aroma. Jujube dates and dried goji berries add a bit more warmth. From there, the soup stays simple, just salt, and maybe, at the table, a few drops of good soy sauce and a pinch of ground white pepper if you like.

(I’m trying the Substack recipe block for the first time. Fun! )

Make the Chicken Soup Rice (Jitang fan, 鸡汤饭)

1. Remove the cooked chicken from the pot, let it cool slightly, and shred or chop it into bite-sized pieces. Slice the cooked shiitake mushrooms.

2. Place warm rice in a bowl. Ladle hot chicken soup over it. Top with chicken, shiitake slices, morels, and chicken pieces. Season with more salt, soy sauce, chili oil, or sesame oil to taste. Garnish with sliced scallions.

Variations

• Instead of a whole chicken, use legs, thighs, and wings.

• Shiitake is the base, but you can use other dried mushrooms such as “tea tree mushrooms” (茶树菇), bamboo fungus (竹荪), or dried almond mushrooms (姬松茸), wood ear mushrooms (木耳). Mixed dried mushroom packs for soup are often available at Asian grocery stores. I’ve used fresh and dried porcini mushrooms before, too.

• Add vegetables like bok choy or napa cabbage at the end of cooking.

You can also use the chicken soup as a base for:

Leaving Neijiang, we headed south to Luzhou (泸州), a city with rich culinary and brewing cultures. Located at the borders of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Chongqing, as well as at the confluence of the Yangtze, Chishui, and Tuo rivers, Luzhou has historically served as a vital hub for trade, once moving salt to neighboring provinces, and today, producing some of China’s most prestigious spirits.

Entering Luzhou means entering one of China’s most important baijiu terroirs. The Chishui River (赤水河) is known as China’s river for brewing, and a saying goes: “The Chishui flows for ten thousand years. Upstream, they brew liquor; downstream, they brew soy sauce.”1 The river is home to Sichuan’s traditional handcrafted soy sauce, Guizhou’s black vinegar, and nearly half of China’s renowned baijiu brands, including Luzhou Laojiao and Moutai.

Once a key strategic site during the Red Army’s Long March in the 1930s, the river today is more tranquil, with air perfumed with the aroma from lees. It was a pilgrimage my parents had wanted to make for years.

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The Living Cellars of Luzhou Laojiao

You can’t talk about Luzhou without talking about baijiu, a distilled Chinese spirit made primarily from grains like sorghum. The city’s namesake brand, Luzhou Laojiao (literally “Luzhou’s ancient cellar”), is among the oldest still-operating baijiu producers, fermenting in the same clay pits since 1573, during the Ming dynasty.

At the original site, now a tourist attraction with a small tour museum, you can watch young workers moving grains and stirring lees inside the cellars. The baijiu produced here belongs to the nongxiang (浓香, strong aroma) style, distinct from jiangxiang (酱香, sauce aroma, such as Moutai) or qingxiang (清香, light aroma, such as Fenjiu).

Its intensity comes from both the microbe-rich fermentation mud pits and a particular starter, gan chun qu (甘醇曲)2, or mellow sweet starter, developed by founder Guo Huaiyu in the 14th century.

Admittedly, I have never been a fan of the aggressive drinking culture at Chinese banquets, and being slightly alcohol-intolerant, my enthusiasm lies in the fermentation knowledge rather than the bottle collection. However, Luzhou Laojiao is doing a brilliant job of attracting younger consumers. Following a quite modern and well-curated museum, their gift shop features chic collaborations, including dark chocolates filled with laojiao spirit and a cafe serving baijiu lattes (likely inspired by the Luckin Moutai collab). I ordered a latte with a half-shot; for the first time, I could actually taste the rich, almost tropical fruit notes of the spirit without the unbearable alcohol burn in my throat.

Xianshi Soy Sauce

One of my most anticipated stops was Xianshi Jiangyou (先市酱油), a traditional soy sauce brewery in Hejiang County, right on the banks of the Chishui River.

The brewery is open to the public and offers seasonal lunches and workshops. We pre-ordered an eight-bowl menu (八碗), inspired by countryside banquet dishes: pork belly with rice powder and yacai, deep-fried pork strips, freshly made tofu with dipping sauce, and steamed vegetables. The highlight was soy sauce rice, short-grain rice steamed with their soy sauce, glossy and deeply savory.

Ms. Pei, our guide, led us through a small museum, explaining that soy sauce production boomed here in the late Qing dynasty thanks to local soybean cultivation, thriving salt commerce, and the movement of migrant merchants. Founded by the Yuan family in 1893, the brewery was built with a sun-drying yard and a temple by the river.

The process remains traditional and handcrafted. Locally grown whole soybeans are soaked, selected, steamed intact, cooled, then mixed with wheat flour and transferred to a fermentation room with controlled temperature and humidity. Over several days, qu, the mold cultures grow across the beans, then turn yellow-green. The beans are then mixed with salted water made from local well salt, and moved into large jars outdoors to ferment for at least three years (most commercial soy sauce ferments for just three to six months).

Somewhat 6000 jars line both riverbanks at a 45-degree slope, maximizing sunlight and airflow by day, and river moisture by night—a process known as ri shai ye lu (日晒夜露, “day dry, night dew”). Workers regularly stir the jars to expose the paste to air and sunlight.

Once matured, the soy sauce seeps out through bamboo sieves, then undergoes another round of sun-drying, often during the blazing Sichuan summer, to further concentrate its flavor into a thick, deeply umami sauce.

At the workshop space, I met Master Chen Siwei, the only national-level inheritor of intangible cultural heritage in the soy sauce-making industry. He’s worked here for over forty years and still oversees production while teaching apprentices and students. He was more than happy to share his knowledge and seemed a little surprised that I had traveled a long way to see this. “It’s great that young people are interested in traditional techniques.” Ms. Pei told me that most of the tours she gives are for students and government visitor groups.

He told me he had compared local soybeans to those grown elsewhere and found that the local varieties have higher protein content by yielding more tofu. “More protein means more amino acids in the final product,” he said. He encouraged us to taste the freshly steamed beans, nutty, rich, and quite satisfying. “I could snack on these without any seasoning”, I told him.

Some of the jars supply high-end restaurants in Chengdu. You can even adopt a jar during spring production like a fruit tree, or take home a small kit to brew your own. Logistics didn’t allow for that, so we brought back a few bottles of four-year-aged soy sauce, drawn freshly from the jars, for our relatives. I carried a five-year-old bottle back to Berlin, along with their spicy fermented tofu.

More Tofu and Rice-based Small Eats

Southern Sichuan has a deep tofu culture rooted in soybean farming and the region’s long history of well salt production, which yields nigari as a by-product. In smaller towns like Hejiang, you’ll see giant woks of freshly made soft tofu sold streetside for douhua fan (豆花饭), tofu served with spicy dipping sauce and rice. Fermented tofu (furu), fermented soybeans (douchi), and other soybean preserves are equally commonplace, stacked in produce markets or sold casually from street stalls.

A communal specialty here is hun douhua (荤豆花), or “meaty douhua.” As the tofu curdles, it’s added to a large pot with pork or chicken, starch sausage, pickled vegetables, and greens, essentially a tofu hotpot. We tried a version with black-bean douhua and chicken in Luzhou city. My dad found it unremarkable. “We have this at home,” he said.

Another version of fresh tofu, doufunao (豆腐脑), is silkier, likely coagulated with gypsum. It’s served in a glossy sauce thickened with chicken stock and pea starch, topped with fried dough strips (sanzi, 馓子), chili oil, Sichuan pepper, peanuts, and scallions. Each spoonful is full of texture contrast and flavor.

Rice-based snacks are breakfast staples here. Bai gao (白糕) is a fluffy steamed rice cake made from long-grain rice with slight fermentation. Zhuer ba (猪儿粑), literally “piggy pastry,” are soft sticky rice buns filled with pork and fermented vegetables, a variation of the better-known ye’er ba (叶儿粑).

In Yaoba Ancient Town, nearly every stall sells huangba (黄粑), a celebratory cake made from two types of rice (normal and sticky) and both white and dark brown sugar, wrapped in lesser galangal or bamboo leaves and eaten at festivals.

Lost Traditional Sichuan Dishes

Scrolling through Red Note, one restaurant on Luzhou’s outskirts caught my attention: Jinguiyuan (金桂苑), a farmhouse-style place still serving rare local dishes that appear in my vintage cookbooks but have nearly vanished from modern menus (at least I don’t recall seeing them in menus of Sichuan restaurants in Chengdu, for example).

I came for two dishes that I’ve never tried before. The first, Luzhou hongdan (泸州烘蛋). Eggs are beaten with a starch slurry, deep-fried into a solid omelet, cut into squares, then re-fried into golden, nugget-like puffs. Served with a ketchup-based sweet and sour sauce, its texture reminded me more of Austrian Kaiserschmarrn than anything from Sichuan cuisine.

The second dish, fugu ji (附骨鸡), literally “chicken around the bone,” is a stir-fry of boney chicken pieces with ginger and scallion whites in a spicy sauce. I was surprised by how juicy and well-seasoned it was. Tasting a hint of sweetness, I went to the kitchen and asked the chef if he used tianmianjiang. He smiled and said it was laozao, sweet fermented rice. That explained the deep aroma.

In parts of Sichuan, including my hometown, braised fish is a classic dish rooted in local fishing traditions. It is typically braised in a doubanjiang-based sauce, served in individual portions, and finished with huoxiang (藿香), also known as Korean mint, a herb commonly used in braised fish dishes here. In Luzhou, what sets the crucian carp apart is the addition of chunks of pork belly, braised together with the fish to add extra richness.

Gulin Hanging Noodles (古蔺挂面)

On our way toward northern Guizhou, we stopped in Gulin, a small city on the Sichuan–Guizhou border, deep in the Chishui River valley.

Gulin is home to Langjiu (郎酒), another high-end baijiu brand, whose vast factory buildings cling to the cliffs of the valley. Across the river, Xijiu (习酒) from Guizhou faces it directly, the two distilleries standing opposite one another on either side of the water.

However, I was there for guamian (挂面), noodles that are hung to dry. On one old street dotted with noodle shops, walking down felt like entering a “waterfall of noodles.” They make noodles of different thickness, but the most popular is chive-like, flat, thin noodles (韭菜叶子面), one used in many Sichuan noodle dishes, including Neijing beef noodles. With abundant sunlight, low humidity, and minimal rainfall, the valley is perfect for drying noodles; they’re ready in just a day. Locally, they’re eaten for breakfast with braised beef and smashed peas, but they travel far beyond Gulin.

Almost every Sichuan city has its own cold chicken dish. Gulin’s is malaji (麻辣鸡). The chicken, mostly rooster with firm meat, is braised in a spiced master stock, then served with chili oil for dipping. More fragrant than poached chicken, it’s deeply seasoned. We bought another half a chicken for the road, and quietly finished it all.

We’re leaving Sichuan now and entering Guizhou. Before moving on to Guizhou and Yunnan, here at Substack, which I need to read and reflect on, I will share some recipes in the next few weeks!

It has since evolved into a lovely, if sometimes funny, little family tradition. We’ve been to Yibin, Zigong, Meishan, and Ya’an. My parents often question my itinerary: “Why did you pick this place in the middle of nowhere?” or “The restaurant across the road looks better because it’s fuller.” My dad is notoriously picky. He’ll drop his chopsticks and sigh at an underwhelming meal. Yet, when I asked him for his Sichuan highlights, he didn’t hesitate: the “burning noodles” (ranmian) of Yibin and the rustic stir-fries of a tiny village outside Zigong.

upgrade to paid

In December, we headed south from Chengdu toward Neijiang and Luzhou, eventually crossing the border into Guizhou. Southern Sichuan cuisine is one of the three major schools of the province, and Neijiang is the center of the genre together with Zigong1. It is characterized by a bold use of fresh ginger, a high level of spice, and a mastery of quick stir-frying. Food historian Lan Yong suggests this region preserves ancient culinary traditions, such as the use of sticky rice and local ginger varieties (蜀姜)2, that predate the more modern, “as-we-know-it” Sichuan food that evolved during the late Qing Dynasty.

Our first stop was Neijiang. Historically a vital hub for land and water transport, it was once the heart of Sichuan’s sugarcane production, earning it the nickname “The City of Sweet” (甜城).

We arrived in Luoquan (罗泉古镇), an ancient town of Zizhong county, just after the weekly market day (known as gan ji). A few vendors lingered with fruit baskets and piles of sugarcane at the town entrance, though they admitted the sugarcane stalks were now imported from Guizhou. “People have turned to more profitable crops, like citrus,” they told us. In winter, you’ll see sugarcane sold on the streets as a snack. If you buy one, vendors peel and cut it into small pieces. Albeit a bit odd, we chew it for the sugary juice and discard the rest like a human juicer, a tradition that likely resulted in the scarcity of sugar in the past. We bought some local peng gan (椪柑); this juicy mandarin-pomelo hybrid is a Sichuan winter staple. Here, you can buy half a kilo of plump, fresh fruit for just 1 yuan.

Luoquan Tofu Banquets

Sichuan has several towns famous for tofu banquets, or doufu yan (豆腐宴), with a whole meal dedicated to tofu dishes: Xiba in Leshan (where I had 9 tofu dishes in one meal), Jiange in Guangyuan, and Luoquan in Zizhong county. These traditions are rooted in local soybean plantations and high-quality tofu production. Luoquan tofu is crafted from locally grown soybeans and well water, coagulated with nigari (a byproduct of local well salt production). The streets were lined with freshly made blocks of tofu, furu (fermented tofu) coated in chili flakes, spicy fermented soy beans bathing in daylight, and bags of savory, flavored pressed tofu.

The term “banquet”, though, can be misleading. These aren’t fancy dinners but nong jia le (farmhouse) style: open kitchens, plastic tablecloths, and a relaxed atmosphere. On a quiet Saturday, the restaurants were filled not with tourists, but with local families and retirees.

Following a tip from a parking attendant, we ended up at the Ancient Town Delicacy Restaurant (古镇美食饭店). Their menu offered 20 different tofu preparations. For a party of three, a full banquet wasn’t practical, so we tried two standout dishes. We started with Doufu Baozi (豆腐包子): fried, pork-stuffed tofu pockets braised in a delicate sweet-and-sour sauce.

As the most popular dish in town, you can even buy these raw to cook at home. Then came the Guobian Doufu (锅边豆腐), “wok-side tofu”. It’s fried until golden and crispy, then tossed with doubanjiang, house-made chili sauce, pickled mustard, scallions, and celery. It’s a spicier, drier version of home-style tofu. As the auntie put it, “Young people love it.”

As the Chinese New Year approached, the restaurant had already stocked a selection of cured meats for sale. We rounded out the meal with country-style stir-fried mushrooms, their house-made larou (cured pork), and a pea shoot soup. Throughout my time in southwest China, I’ve had probably more than 20 bowls of pea shoot soup; I never tire of it. The open kitchen allowed me to observe the techniques firsthand; it’s inspiring to see how a single, familiar ingredient can be transformed into so many different textures.

Luoquan is also home to the Yanshen Miao (盐神庙), the only temple in China dedicated to the God of Salt. The local salt wells here are said to predate even those of Zigong. Unfortunately, it was closed for maintenance. The classic blessing and curse of traveling during the off-season.

Neijiang Beef Noodles

Beef noodle soup is a Sichuan classic that might have inspired the Taiwanese version. Recently, I’ve noticed a boom in Neijiang-style noodle shops in Chengdu. I tried one last May and was underwhelmed, so I arrived at the source with high hopes.

We chose Widow Noodles (寡妇面), a third-generation shop with a confident, five-item menu. It did not disappoint. I was first struck by the aroma of the scorched chili oil. The noodles, called shui mian (water noodles) locally, are made daily with alkaline water. They are similar to Chengdu’s “chive leaf” noodles (韭菜叶子面), thin, flat, machine-pressed noodles, but firmer and springier. After a quick blanch, they are served in a rich bone broth seasoned with a generous amount of chili oil. It wasn’t as spicy as it looked, but deeply fragrant. The beef chunks, stewed for hours in beef tallow, doubanjiang, and spices, were tender and not stringy at all.

In my book, a perfect bowl means the noodles stay springy until the last bite and the broth is well-seasoned without leaving you gasping for water. This hit the mark. We were so impressed, we bought a large bucket of their house-made chili oil to take home.

Ban Cai & Zhanshui dishes

In Neijiang’s old town center, four or five restaurants seem to hold a monopoly over one particular street. Following my parents’ philosophy, we joined the crowd at Duoduowei Bancai (多多味拌菜), a spot specializing in cold meat dishes either dressed, called ban cai (拌菜), or served with a dipping sauce, called zhanshui cai (蘸水菜). You might know the latter from fushun douhua (富顺豆花), a Southern Sichuan staple of freshly made soft tofu with a dipping sauce on the side.

Southern Sichuan is the premier place for rabbit. We ordered the zhanshui tu (蘸水兔): poached, skin-on rabbit served with a vibrant dipping sauce of fresh red chili, garlic, and cilantro. The meat was so bouncy that when I later saw a contestant cooking rabbit on the show Culinary Class Wars, I wanted to send the judges straight to Neijiang.

We also ordered a rustic Fuqi Feipian (Husband and Wife Lung Slices) and a stir-fry featuring a novel ingredient: bi jin (鼻筋), or pig’s nose cartilage. This cut has become trendy in BBQ restaurants. Stir-fried here with tender yellow chives, ginger, and scallions, it was delightfully crunchy, a true testament to the Sichuanese “nose-to-tail” philosophy to appreciate the whole animal.

To end the day, we found a snack eatery popular with students serving re liangfen (warm sweet potato jelly noodles) and a creamy, lukewarm mung bean soup. Unlike the cold versions served in summer, this was thickened with sticky rice, a quite soothing balm for the winter night chill.

Before leaving, I picked up some Zizhong Dongjian (资中冬尖), a famous preserved green from the area (also named as one of the four most famous preserved vegetables in Sichuan, among Fuling Zhacai, Yibin Yacai and Neijiang Datoucai, though I haven’t encountered the last). I feel obligated to bring these flavors back to my kitchen in Berlin. After all, a food souvenir is the best kind of souvenir.

On a non-food-related note, Zizhong also has a beautiful temple honoring Confucius. You can see students hanging red ribbons, praying for good grades or entry into their dream schools.

When I joked about putting my own wish on the tree, my dad laughed: “Confucius is not in charge of your social media views.”

So, following last week’s guide (please check it out if you haven’t!), I’m sharing three recipes that put furu to work. I did briefly fall a rabbit hole and found an entire book dedicated to furu, with more than 200 recipes, but let’s start with these. Together, they cover vegetables, poultry, and pork, with a range of cooking times and effort levels. Use whatever tools and methods you’re already comfortable with.

The first is an obvious choice: Cantonese stir-fried water spinach. I usually keep my stir-fried vegetables minimal, just garlic and maybe some dried chili, so adding furu to the sauce felt like a fun twist on my usual routine. While water spinach is a summer vegetable, you can easily substitute other leafy greens, like choy sum and stem spinach.

Next are oven-roasted chicken wings, inspired by the Cantonese street food nanru zhaji (南乳炸鸡), which is traditionally deep-fried chicken marinated in red furu sauce. The version I’m sharing here is simplified and inspired by Zhang Linxia’s book Barbecue Day (烧烤日). Instead of breading and frying, the wings are roasted in the oven. You still get the same depth of flavor from the marinade, just with less effort.

It also reminded me how much I love cooking with wings. They’re flavorful, forgiving, and noticeably cheaper than other cuts of chicken in German supermarkets (Wings don’t seem to be especially popular here, which works out in my favor). I use the same marinade on ribs in my air fryer, and the results are consistently good (I’m already thinking about putting it in marinades for the summer barbecue season).

The final dish: furu braised ribs (南乳仔排 or 腐乳排骨). I first tasted this version at the Hangzhou restaurant Jiangnanyi last May, and it stayed with me long after the meal.

After cooking it several times at home, I’ve learned that it’s far more approachable than it sounds, especially if you’re already familiar with Chinese-style braised ribs, like tangcu pork ribs. The same method works beautifully with pork belly as well, making it a rich, indulgent option for the upcoming Chinese New Year.

Stir-Fried Water Spinach with Furu Sauce丨腐乳空心菜

Ingredients

• 300g (10 oz.) water spinach

• 2 cloves of garlic

• 1 fresh red chili (optional)

• 3 small cubes white furu (about 1½ tbsp)

• 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine

• ¼ tsp salt

• ½ tsp sugar

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

• 1 tbsp water

• more salt, to taste

Instructions

1. Trim off the tough ends of the water spinach. Cut into 6-7 cm (2-3 inch) pieces and separate the stems from the leaves. Rinse thoroughly and drain well.

2. Mince garlic. Remove the stem from the red chili and slice it thinly.

3. In a small bowl, add the furu, Shaoxing wine, sugar, and salt. Mash with a fork or spoon until the mixture is smooth.

4. Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat. Add the garlic and fry briefly until fragrant. Add the water spinach stems and stir-fry for about 1 minute. Add the leaves and cook for another minute. Increase the heat to medium-high. Add 1 tbsp water alongside the wall of the wok, and stir-fry briefly. It should create a steam that helps cook the water spinach.

5. Add the furu sauce and sliced chili. Stir-fry for another 30 seconds, until the vegetables are evenly coated. Season with more sauce if needed.

Variations

• Use choy sum or bok choy (increase cooking time by about 1-2 minutes), use spinach with stem (reduce the cooking time, as spinach cooks extremly fast)

• Red or spicy furu can be used instead of white furu.

Roasted Furu Chicken Wings丨南乳烤鸡翅

Read more

The new year’s first post kicks off with another pantry deep dive. This is a series where I explore Chinese pantry staples, from doubanjiang, tofu, to preserved vegetables. You can find all previous ones here.

I’ve been working on this piece about furu for the past two to three months. After traveling and eating my way through southwest China in recent weeks, I couldn’t help but notice just how prevalent it is. At almost every produce market from Sichuan to Yunnan, vendors sell blocks of fermented, molded tofu alongside ready-seasoned furu. It’s spread onto grilled rice cakes, stirred into dipping sauces for hot pot, paired with fried tofu, or eaten straight with rice or congee.

It’s also one of those pantry staples I grew up with but only began to truly appreciate in recent years. Cooking with furu opened up a new world for me. I started adding it to meat marinades, stir-fry sauces, and braises, and even (experimentally) to cookies. The more I used it, the more I realized how great it is as a seasoning. If chili crisp has been crowned the Chinese ingredient, I’m happily manifesting furu as the next one.

What is Furu?

Known in English as fermented bean curd or fermented tofu, furu goes by several names in Chinese, including 腐乳 (fǔrǔ), 豆腐乳 (dòufu rǔ), 霉豆腐 (méi dòufu), and 卤腐 (lǔfǔ). It comes in small, creamy cubes packed in jars filled with brine or oil, with a texture similar to soft cheeses like ricotta. Its flavor is deeply savory and umami, with a gentle sweetness and a little bit of funk.

Originally, as a way to preserve tofu, furu has been produced for centuries. A written reference appears as early as 1610 in Penglong Yehua (《蓬櫳夜話》), a Ming dynasty text that describes fermented bean curd under the name haifu (醢腐). It also appears in early cookbooks such as Notes on Vegetarian Cooking (《素食说略》) and Xing Yuan Lu (《醒园录》) from the Qing Dynasty.

While regional variations abound, the process generally follows a two-stage fermentation. First, firm tofu is cut into cubes and left to air-dry, where it becomes inoculated, either naturally by airborne spores or intentionally with mold cultures (such as Actinomucor or Mucor). Home productions use specialized koji called furu qu (腐乳曲). Once a layer of surface mold develops, the cubes are submerged in a brine with salt, sometimes also with spices, rice wine, and other ingredients. From there, they age for weeks or months, developing their signature creamy texture and complex flavor. During fermentation, enzymes from molds and bacteria break tofu proteins down into amino acids, building furu’s deep umami taste.

In some regions, the unseasoned moldy tofu itself, known as mei doufu (霉豆腐), is sold widely and cooked as-is.

The Major Types of Furu

Furu comes in many regional styles, but it’s commonly grouped into four main categories: white, red, green, and flavored furu. If you’re new to furu, start with white or red—they’re the most versatile and easiest to find in Asian supermarkets.

Red Furu (红腐乳 / 南乳 / 红方)

Red furu is fermented with red rice yeast (红曲), which gives it a brick-red exterior. Compared to other types, it tends to be milder and slightly sweeter. It also adds a beautiful red color to dishes, so it’s often used in marinades. Well-known producers include Wangzhihe (王致和) from Beijing and Xianheng (咸亨) from Zhejiang.

Red furu is common across China but is especially popular in Jiangnan and Cantonese cooking, and in Guangdong, it’s often called nan ru (南乳). It’s used in marinades and braising sauces, like furu-braised pork belly and riblets, as well as in fried chicken (南乳炸鸡) and char siu. Some producers also sell the liquid version, nanru zhi (南乳汁), on its own.

In Chaoshan, it’s added to a sweet-salty pastry called furu bing, which inspired a cookie recipe here. In Beijing, it’s used in the dipping sauce for copper lamb hot pot, together with sesame paste and peanut butter.

White Furu (白腐乳 / 白方)

White furu is another popular style across China, with well-known versions from Guilin in Guangxi and Kaiping in Guangdong. It’s commonly used in braised dishes, vegetable stir-fries, and cold dishes, such as stir-fried water spinach (腐乳空心菜) and cold-dressed peanuts (腐乳花仁).

I find white furu especially good for stir-frying vegetables, as it melts nicely into the sauce. Dishes like choy sum, yu choy, water spinach, and pointed cabbage work particularly well. In Cantonese cuisine, chefs use this to braise fuzzy gourd (腐乳闷节瓜), so I can imagine it would work nicely on other gourds such as winter melon or zucchini.

Green Furu (青方 / 臭豆腐)

Green furu is often called stinky furu or chou doufu in Mandarin. It’s aged longer with the addition of salted water and a fermented brine (jiang shui, 浆水), which gives it a dark green surface and a pronounced stink. It’s most commonly eaten in northern China and parts of eastern China. While often served as a side dish, it also appears in dishes where the funky aroma is part of the appeal, such as stinky Chinese perch (臭鳜鱼) from Anhui.

I’m not very familiar with this type and bought a jar for research purposes. I’d say it’s not for the faint of heart—much more pungent than the “stinky tofu” you’d usually find as a street food.

Flavored Furu

Spicy Furu (辣腐乳)

Spicy furu, either soaked in chili oil, a chili-infused brine, or coated in chili flakes, is common in southwest China, including in Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou. Well-known production regions include Jiajiang(夹江) from Sichuan and Mouding (牟定) from Yunnan.

These are excellent as a side dish, stirred into dipping sauces for hot pot or fried tofu, or spread onto grilled rice cakes (erkuai, a Yunnan specialty). In markets, you’ll sometimes see the cubes sold coated in chili flakes or wrapped in napa cabbage leaves.

Spicy furu is fairly accessible in Asian supermarkets from brands like Lao Gan Ma (LGM’s version is mild in spices). You can use it much like white furu, but with a spicy kick. I especially like adding it to creamy noodle sauces with peanut butter and sesame paste.

Xiangzao Furu (香糟腐乳 / 糟方)

This style features white furu soaked in xiangzao, the fragrant lees left over from rice wine production. I first tried it while visiting a soy sauce brewery in Shaoxing and immediately fell for its strong wine aroma and sweet finish. Slightly darker than plain white furu, it’s often tossed with fried walnuts (糟方桃仁) or used similarly to white furu in sauces.

You can also find furu soaked directly in yellow rice wine, called zui fang (醉方), though both are quite rare outside China.

How to Use Furu

Furu is incredibly versatile. Eat it with rice, mash it into sauces, or cook with it like a seasoning. It adds umami, salt, richness, and even color, to dishes like char siu or fried chicken.

Most types of furu can be used interchangeably, except for stinky furu and dishes where you need the red color from red furu. Once opened, furu can last for months in the fridge. Just be sure to use clean utensils and check for any unwanted mold.

Here are a few ways to use furu:

• In marinades for meat, like chicken or pork

• In a cold dish dressing

• In stir-fry sauces for vegetables

• In braising sauces for pork or beef

• In pastries, like this cookie recipe

• In dipping sauces for Beijing-style hot pot, Sichuan lamb hot pot, and Guizhou sour soup hot pot, etc.

Furu also works surprisingly well in non-Chinese dishes. I’ve used it in peanut butter cookies and even in playful takes like this cacio e pepe from Calvin Eng and this carbonara from Kathy Yuan (I made it with homemade cured pork, it tasted great!).

Make a Compound Butter With Furu

One fun, low-effort way to experiment with furu is to mash it with butter. Inspired by a post from Lisa Lin and from a Shanghai restaurant, I started blending furu with butter, and it’s since become a staple in my kitchen. I use a ratio of about 1 part furu to 2–3 parts unsalted, softened butter, depending on how salty the furu is. White furu works best, followed by red and spicy furu (red takes a bit longer to blend).

Spread it on toast or steamed buns, or melt it over roasted vegetables like carrots.

Two recipes to start cooking with furu!

If you’re planning to gather friends or family for New Year’s Eve, or sometime in the quieter weeks of January, this coconut chicken hot pot is a gentle, communal dish that’s easy to love. And if you’re cooking Chinese food over the holidays, you’ll find more ideas in the archive. Some of my favorites include Cantonese wonton noodles, Scallion Pancakes, and Yibin burning noodles.

My first encounter with Hainanese coconut chicken hot pot, also known as yezi ji (椰子鸡), occurred during a one-day layover in Shenzhen in 2012, en route to Hong Kong. Shenzhen, a megacity of over 17 million people, is better known for its technological innovation than for its culinary tradition. Still, my mother’s high school friend, who moved there in the early 1990s amid China’s economic reforms, insisted that a friend and I seek out this specialty. In Shenzhen’s Luohu district, I tasted a clear broth that was delicate and faintly sweet, with chicken poached briefly yet so tender and springy. More than a decade later, I can still remember it clearly.

Although the dish is closely associated with Hainan, it’s widely believed that the first coconut chicken hot pot restaurant opened in Shenzhen. One popular origin story traces it to a Malaysian Chinese restaurateur from Hainan who opened a restaurant there in the 1990s, serving chicken sourced from his hometown.

The Shenzhen version features a broth made with water from young coconuts. The prized chickens come from Wenchang, a city on the tropical island of Hainan known for free-range birds fed banyan seeds and coconut flesh, which gives the meat its distinctive texture. South of Wenchang lies one of China’s major coconut-growing regions, with a history dating back over two thousand years. In Hainan itself, however, coconut chicken often appears in different forms, most notably as a hot pot made with coconut milk (椰奶鸡火锅) rather than coconut water.

Today, Shenzhen has more than 2,000 places serving the dish, which marries Cantonese-style clear broths with Hainanese ingredients and a tropical sensibility, a reflection of the city’s migrant-built identity. Over the years, coconut chicken hot pot has spread far beyond Shenzhen and can now be found across China, including in Chengdu, the second capital of hot pot (if we agree that Chongqing is the first). Its appeal is partly practical: it’s gentler on the stomach, friendly to families, and a welcome break from the fiery intensity of Sichuan cuisine.

I’ve done hot pot many times since moving to Germany (perhaps I’ll tackle a Sichuan classic next), but coconut chicken is especially comforting in winter, or if your friend, like mine, requests something mild. It’s straightforward to prepare, easy on digestion, and merciful when it comes time to clean up.

Without access to good-quality young coconuts, I rely on a shortcut: bottled coconut water, concentrated with dried coconut chips to deepen the flavor. If you’re curious about the traditional young-coconut version, check the recipes from Chinese Food Demystified and Kathy Yuan’s at Mala Market. The dipping sauce is often a mix of calamansi lime, sand ginger, xiaomila chili, and soy sauce, but I used regular lime, ginger, and galangal instead.

You can also scale down from a whole chicken to chicken thighs or legs and turn it into a stew for two. Some restaurants serve the dish alongside a Cantonese clay pot, but I prefer to keep things simple and let the hot pot take center stage. Beyond the chicken, you can add your usual hot pot accompaniments, though yezi ji especially welcomes mild ingredients like mushrooms and tofu products (see suggestions below).

Coconut Chicken Hot Pot (椰子鸡)

Ingredients

For the soup base and chicken

• 1 small whole chicken (about 1.5 kg, preferably free-range or corn-fed)

• 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine

• 4 slices of ginger

• ½ teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns

• 1 liter (about 4 cups) coconut water

• 30 g dried coconut chips

• 2–3 jujube dates

• 1 tablespoon goji berries

For the dipping sauce (per person)

• Juice of ½ lime (calamansi if available)

• 1 teaspoon fish soy sauce

• 1 teaspoon light soy sauce

• ½ Thai bird’s-eye chili, finely chopped

• 1 clove garlic, grated

• 1 teaspoon grated ginger or sand ginger

• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

• Salt and sugar, to taste

If you’d like more meat, supplement with additional deboned chicken thighs or legs. (About 1.5 kg of chicken, with side dishes, comfortably serves 4–5 people.)

Tools

Portable electric burner; divided hot pot or a shallow pot (a Dutch oven works well)

Instructions

1. Break down the whole chicken. Remove the thighs, wings, and breast from the chicken. Cut wings through the joints and chop thighs and legs into bite-sized pieces (about 3 cm) with a cleaver (you can also debone the chicken if not equipped with a cleaver). Reserve the carcass.

2. Rinse the chicken pieces under cold water to remove excess blood. Drain thoroughly. Marinate with 1 tablespoon of Shaoxing wine and 2 slices of ginger. Cover and refrigerate until serve.

3. Place the carcass in a large pot with 2 liters (8 cups) of cold water, 2 remaining slices of ginger, and Sichuan peppercorns. Bring to a gentle boil, skim off foam, then lower the heat and simmer, covered, for at least 1 hour. Strain and reserve the broth.

4. Soak dried ingredients as needed. Wash and cut vegetables. Set up a dipping sauce station.

5. When the guests arrive, combine the chicken broth and coconut water in the hot pot. Add jujube dates and goji berries, then bring to a gentle simmer.

6. Add chicken pieces and cook for about 5 minutes, depending on size, until just cooked through. Continue with vegetables and noodles as desired.

Ideas for Side Dishes

The selection depends largely on what you enjoy and what’s available. It’s similar to other styles of hot pot, though red meat and offal play a much smaller role than in Sichuan hot pot. With a single soup base, hot pot is really about contrast and texture, so I like to divide side dishes into categories and make sure there’s a balance: crunchy, tender, springy (QQ), and soft. Choose one to three items from each category, or assign categories for your guests to bring.

Tofu

• Firm tofu

• Fried tofu puffs

• Tofu skin (soaked)

• Fried tofu rolls (响铃卷)

Mushrooms

• Shimeji

• Oyster or king oyster

• Enoki

• Dried wood ear mushrooms

• Dried bamboo fungus (竹荪)

Leafy Greens

• Napa cabbage

• Bok choy

• Water spinach

• Lettuce like A-choy (celtiuce green)

• Tongho (Chrysanthemum greens)

Hearty Vegetables

• Lotus root

• Chinese mountain yam

• Potato, sweet potato

• Corn

Proteins

• Chicken

• Fish balls or meatballs

• Crab sticks

• Frozen thinly sliced beef

• Spam

• Shrimp or shrimp paste

Noodles

• Mung bean threads

• Sweet potato noodles

• Knife-cut wheat noodles

(Rough) Hosting Timeline

Plan for about 2–3 hours of preparation time (excluding shopping):

• 2 hours before: Break down the chicken, start the broth, and soak dried ingredients

• 1 hour before: Wash and cut vegetables

• 30 minutes before: Set the table; Prepare dipping sauces

• When guests arrive: Bring the broth to a simmer and begin blanching ingredients.

Over the past 10 days, I flew back to Chengdu and took a road trip through southern Sichuan, northern Guizhou, and Chongqing, before returning to my hometown in the northeastern part of Sichuan, where most of my family still lives. I’ve just caught my breath after being constantly on the road. Before heading off to my next family reunion (it’s winter solstice tomorrow and we’re eating lamb hot pot!), I’m sending this newsletter from my parents’ house from a shaky writing desk, with a nice view over the Jialing River.

I wanted to share a cookie recipe built around furu (腐乳), the Chinese fermented bean curd also known as fuyu, or fermented tofu. Savory, creamy, and deeply umami, it’s made by fermenting and seasoning tofu (I touched on it briefly in my Guide to Tofu Products ). I’ve been cooking with it a lot over the past few months for an upcoming pantry deep dive, almost always in savory dishes.

At some point, though, a different question emerged: could this work in something sweet?

The idea isn’t entirely new. In parts of Guangdong, particularly the Chaoshan (Teoswa) region, there’s a traditional pastry called furu bing (腐乳饼). It resembles a Cantonese mooncake, but the filling is a savory-sweet mix of red furu, candied pork, peanuts, sesame, candied fruits, and even garlic. Inspired, I wanted to translate that flavor pairing into a cookie.

I’ll admit I’m not an avid baker. The cookies I make on repeat are probably only two: matcha cookies and gochujang cookies. But this experiment felt worth sharing, especially because there are few cookie recipes that use furu at all. If you happen to have a jar of red furu at home, this is a really fun way to use it.

I love a salty-sweet cookie, especially a multi-culti savory cookie, which incorporates Asian ingredients. If there’s a miso cookie on a café menu, that’s what I’m ordering. Some of the best versions I’ve had were at Mokonuts in Paris and SOFI in Berlin. When Eric Kim’s gochujang cookies came out, it really shifted how I think about bold, savory flavors in dessert.

To preserve the rosy hue of red furu, I based this recipe on Eric Kim’s method of gochujang caramel in his recipe, then cross-referenced several peanut butter cookie and miso cookie formulas from Kitchen Projects and Sweet Things. If you’re wondering about the flavor, the result lands close to a miso cookie, which makes sense, as both are fermented soy products, but red furu is gentler, slightly sweeter, with a soft tang. The cookie ends up balanced, savory, and with a little taste of umami. Crunchy peanut butter echoes the peanuts traditionally found in furu bing, adding texture and nuttiness.

There’s room to refine the appearance, but flavor-wise, this landed pretty much where I hoped. I’ve shared these with people who didn’t grow up eating furu at all, and the response has been quite good.

Here are a few other cookie flavors I’m excited about:

• Bolo bao cookies from Rachel Lo (she makes many fun Asian-inspired baked goods)

• Salted egg yolk cereal cookies from Constellation Inspiration

• Cornflake sugar cookies with lime and tajín from Devan (she also has a cookie round-up in her newsletter)

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Furu Peanut Butter Cookies ｜ 腐乳花生酱曲奇

Makes 8 large cookies

Ingredients

For the furu caramel

• 1 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

• 2 tbsps dark brown sugar (I used Chinese dark brown sugar)

• 35 g red furu (about 1½ large cubes), with some of its liquid

For the cookie dough

• 115 g (½ cup) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

• 120 g light brown sugar

• 2 tbsps chunky peanut butter

• 1 egg

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 180 g (1½ cups) all-purpose flour

• ½ tsp baking soda

• ⅛ tsp salt

Instructions

1. In a small bowl, stir together the softened butter, dark brown sugar, and red furu until smooth and well combined. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and light brown sugar with a hand mixer until light and fluffy, for 2-3 minutes. Add the peanut butter, egg, and vanilla extract, and beat for about 1 minute, until combined.

3. Then add the salt and baking soda. Add the flour in two batches, mixing on low speed until just incorporated each time. Refrigerate the dough for about 1 hour.

4. Preheat the oven to 165°C / 330°F fan. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Using an ice cream scoop, portion the dough into 8 cookies, placing 4 cookies on each baking sheet and leaving plenty of space between them. Spoon some of the furu caramel onto each portion and gently swirl it into the dough, reserving about 1 tablespoon of caramel. Drizzle the remaining caramel over the tops of the cookies directly on the baking sheets.

5. Bake for 12–14 minutes, until the edges are set, but the centers are still soft. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

Chinese desserts for cold times:

At least, that is what my parents concluded during their visit to Germany last year (along with the revelation of how deeply they love congee). I cooked for them most of the time, and they wanted soup with every single meal served with rice. I tried offering hot tea, and in true German fashion, sparkling water. Neither worked. My mom would glance at the table, spot the absence of soup, and immediately head into the kitchen to make a simple vegetable or egg drop soup.

One day, my mom decided to cook on her own. They went to the supermarket without speaking a word of German and came home with everything they needed for yuanzi tang (圆子汤), a pork meatball soup. The two of them devoured it with a level of satisfaction no European food could hope to deliver. My dad leaned back and said, “It tastes like home.”

Their criticism is fair, and it seems to have resonated with many people since I posted the video: I, or maybe we, don’t cook enough soup. Cooking for one or two makes soup feel like a hassle, especially in a place where seasonal leafy greens (that’s not cabbage) are scarce. I only remember it when the days grow short, and the weather turns unbearably gloomy. This meatball soup, I’ve probably never made it in my professional life as a recipe developer. A beige, lightly seasoned pork meatball soup… how is that supposed to be craveble (aka instagramable)?

But there was always soup in my childhood home. The simplest versions featured blanched in-season greens. More elaborate ones used a hen our relatives brought from the countryside, stewed with wild mushrooms; or a milky fish soup made from huanglading (黄辣丁, yellow catfish) or Asian carp my uncles caught from the Yangtze River. Around Chinese New Year, we had daikon soup with cured meats or fried pork soup (酥肉汤). Before bone broth became a trend, I was fed countless bowls of pork bone soup because I was the shortest kid in school. Even when there was nothing, in the planned-economy years of the 1970s, my late grandpa made “glass soup” (玻璃汤): boiled water, black vinegar, and scallion.

In restaurants, the ordering philosophy was sancai yitang (三菜一汤), three dishes and a soup, the standard for a family of three, extendable to four dishes and one soup. It’s still a rule for national banquets. And honestly, omitting the soup feels unforgivable.

Back to the meatball soup: you’ll find it all over China under names like 圆子汤 or 丸子汤, sometimes taking the form of lion’s head, or fried. The Sichuan version is quite simple, just blanched meatballs with veggies. Two winters ago, at a tiny restaurant in Chengdu, the owner took the liberty of ordering a few seasonal stir-fries for me and then asked, “How about a yuanzitang? With tender pea shoots, it’s very bashi!” Bashi (巴适) is a wonderfully flexible Sichuan dialect: cozy, satisfying, delightful, or dope.

This is a fairly light soup, and some might find it mild, as it’s meant to be served alongside other stir-fries and rice. If you prefer a bolder flavor, finish it with a spoonful of chili oil or a splash of soy sauce.

How to Make Meatballs That Don’t Break

This is an easy recipe, but the meatballs can fall apart if they hit boiling water too quickly. Unlike Italian meatballs, Sichuan homestyle meatballs use no bread; they rely solely on egg and starch as binders.

Here’s what I found helpful:

• Mix all meatball ingredients except the starch until the mixture becomes sticky and the pork absorbs water. Stir in one direction with chopsticks, and “throw” the mixture a few times with your hands to develop structure. Then mix in the starch.

• Shape with damp hands, using the thumb and pointing finger to squeeze out a ball and then shape it (watch my video or YouTube channel Magical ingredients has a great visual instruction here). Shaping them all first helps with even cooking (unless you’re super fast, I find shaping the meatball next to the pot stressful).

  

• Cook the meatballs in water that’s hot, but not simmering ( around 70°C/160°F). Let them sit in the gentle heat before bringing the pot up to a light simmer. Adding them to aggressively boiling water will break them apart.

Sichuan Homestyle Meatball Soup丨 圆子汤 (Yuánzi Tāng)

Serves: 2-4

Ingredients

For the meatballs

• 225 g (½ lb) ground pork with some fat

• 1 tbsp grated ginger

• 1 tbsp water

• ¼ tsp salt

• ⅛ tsp white pepper

• 1 tsp soy sauce

• 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine

• 1 egg

• 1 tbsp corn or potato starch

• 1 scallion

For the soup:

• 600 ml (2.5 cups) water

• 100 g (3.5 oz) leafy green vegetables such as bok choy

• 30 g (1 oz) dried mung bean vermicelli (glass noodles, optional)

• ¼ tsp salt, more to taste

• ⅛ tsp white pepper

• ½ tsp sesame oil

• A few cracks of black pepper

Instructions

1. Make the meatballs: Place the pork in a bowl and grate the ginger into the pork. Thinly slice the scallion, add it to the pork. Add salt, white pepper, soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, water, and egg. Stir vigorously with chopsticks until a sticky paste forms (thicker than dumpling filling). With wet hands, roll into ping-pong-sized balls (about 2.5cm/1 inch). Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes if you have time.

2. Cook the meatballs: Bring water to about 70°C over medium heat, hot but not simmering yet. Gently add the meatballs with a spoon, giving them space. Make sure they don’t stick to the bottom. Gradually bring to a light simmer. Over medium heat, cook the meatballs until pale and floating, about 5-7 minutes. Skim foam.

3. Add vegetables: Quarter the bok choy from the stem. Add them to the pot and cover. Cook until the greens are wilted, for 2-3 minutes (or 1 minute for tender veggies like pea shoots and spinach). Season with salt, white pepper, black pepper, and sesame oil.

Variations:

Meatball soup is highly customizable; you can use the vegetables and ingredients you already have at hand:
Vegetables: napa cabbage, pea shoots, tomatoes, bean sprouts, lettuce, spinach
Others: dried lily buds, dried black wood ear mushrooms, silken or firm tofu, fried egg

Since you’re already here, one more soup for you before you go:

Usually, that means cooking with them once or twice a month. But this summer, while working on two commissioned eggplant recipes, I went through at least ten bags of Japanese eggplants in August and September alone. To my surprise, I never tired of them. The other day, I grabbed another bag almost unconsciously, and when I got home, I wanted something different.

What else can I make with eggplant?

I turned to my old Sichuan cookbooks and landed on “jiangshao qiezi” (酱烧茄子), or sauce-braised eggplant, from my favorite, Popular Sichuan Cooking (大众川菜). I’ve flipped through it so much that it’s now falling apart.

The “sauce” (jiang) in the name doesn’t refer to any sauce, but to a specific seasoning: tianmianjiang. You may know it as the glossy, dark condiment tucked into Peking duck wraps.

Tianmianjiang (甜面酱), also known as tianjiang (甜酱), is a deep brown, thick sauce with a savory-sweet flavor. Traditionally, it’s made by steaming a flour-and-water mixture, inoculating it with a rice-koji mold, and fermenting it with salted water (as shown in this video clip). Some brands include soybeans, which is why it’s sometimes translated as “sweet bean sauce.” The naming can get confusing, but don’t mistake it for soybean paste (黄豆酱), which is lighter in color, grainier, and tastes different. However, brands often produce both and package them in very similar-looking jars.

Though common in northern Chinese kitchens, especially for pickled cucumbers ( jianggua, 酱瓜) and Beijing fried sauce noodles (zhajiangmian, 炸酱面), you’ll also find tianmianjiang in Sichuan cooking. The slight sweetness in twice-fried pork? That’s tianmianjiang working its magic, and it does the same in this chicken yacai stir-fry. When I was a kid and spice-averse, my family often ordered a sticky, savory stir-fry pork called jingjiang rousi (京酱肉丝), another dish highlighting its flavor and sticky texture.

It also makes a wonderfully rich braising sauce for eggplant, bamboo shoots, and tofu, forming a category of dish called jiang shao (sauce-braised, 酱烧). So I thought: why not bring eggplant and tofu together in the same flavor base, with ingredients you can find almost anywhere, in under half an hour? Both absorb sauce beautifully. If you’ve made my home-style tofu before, think of this as a milder, non-spicy alternative to doubanjiang. The tofu also makes it substantial enough to stand alone with rice.

Saucy Braised Eggplant and Tofu | 酱烧茄子豆腐 (Jiàngshāo Qiézi Dòufu)

Serves 2

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Hi! A bit overdue, but here’s the final dispatch from my May trip to China, a return to my home province, Sichuan (I’m heading back again in December!).

I lived there for 21 years before moving to Berlin, yet I still feel I’ve only skimmed the surface. Each time I return, I strive to visit smaller cities and learn about their regional cuisine. I’m reminded again how much Sichuan, a region larger than many European countries, still has to tell. This time, my parents, my partner, and I took a short road trip to Meishan and Ya’an.

(This post might be a bit long for email. Read it in your browser for the full experience!)

Meishan’s Century-Old Restaurant

Meishan is the birthplace of the Song dynasty poet (slash gourmand) Su Dongpo, who inspired a handful of Chinese dishes, and is known for paocai, Sichuan’s lacto-fermented pickles. But before visiting the Paocai Museum, I wanted to make a long-awaited stop: Mawangzi (马旺子), a century-old Sichuan restaurant founded in 1923, when the Ma family began selling xue wang (blood curd stew) in the countryside. Four generations later, it’s a Meishan institution with a gleaming Michelin-starred branch in Chengdu, though its original location still carries an old-school charm.

The Meishan location is a three-story jiu lou (酒楼, banquet restaurant). Guests check in and order on the ground floor with a receptionist before climbing to a spacious second-floor banquet hall lined with white tablecloths and lazy Susans. There’s no QR code ordering here, no gimmicky “leave us a five-star review for a free drink” offers—just old-school service. We were seated beside a real celebration: a family hosting their baby’s 100-day banquet across a dozen tables.

So we ate to the soundtrack of clinking glasses, speeches, and applause.

Their signature is Dongpo hock (东坡肘子), a dish far less known than Dongpo Rou. Unlike the soy-caramelized pork belly (which was believed to be invented during Su Dongpo’s time in Hangzhou), Meishan’s version is a skin-on, bone-in pork hock cooked for hours over low heat until fall-apart tender, then served in a glossy, starchy sauce with a generous amount of ginger, pickled chili, and doubanjiang. The flavor leans savory-sour, quite gingery, and well-spiced.

Another standout is xue wang, the dish that started the restaurant. Here it’s called quanjia wang (全家旺, “whole family fortune”), a name that plays on the word wang/旺, which can mean both “fortune” and “blood curd.” It’s a lush take on mao xue wang (毛血旺), the spicy blood-curd stew popular in Sichuan and Chongqing. A ceramic bowl arrives heaped with blood curd, swamp eel, Spam, pork intestines, and beef tripe in a deeply seasoned mala broth. The chicken blood curd, made fresh daily, is impossibly smooth, worlds apart from the grainier frozen pig blood many eateries use. The broth is fragrant and not aggressively spicy.

But my personal highlight was chicken tofu pudding (ji douhua, 鸡豆花), a dish my mom has praised for years. Despite its name, it contains no tofu. Instead, chicken breast is pounded with broth, starch, and egg whites into a silky curd and served in a clear, delicate consommé. The texture is astonishing, tender, custardy, deceptively simple, yet tasting of hours of work.

With all that on the table, my parents were most wowed by the house paocai: carrots, radish, and celery lightly dressed in chili oil. My dad, a lifelong paocai devotee, declared it the best he’d ever had. “I never thought people could charge money for paocai,” he said. “But for this? They can.” The waitress explained that the restaurant picks large batches for only a day or two to keep them fresh and extra crisp. And of course, we could only imagine the decades-old pickle brine they must be maintaining behind the scenes.

The meal revealed the full spectrum of Sichuan flavor: the delicacy of chicken tofu pudding; the rustic, countryside boldness of blood curd; the everyday comfort of paocai. It reminded me that great dining in China isn’t only found in hole-in-the-wall joints or upscale tasting menus, but also in restaurants perfecting classic dishes.

The Paocai Museum

A short drive away sits the China Paocai Museum, part of Meishan’s (probably) still-under-construction pickle tourism complex. The area feels more like an industrial district, with dozens of paocai brands and a research institute dedicated to fermentation technology.

The museum traces the long history of vegetable preservation in Chinese history, displaying replicas of ancient paocai vessels, remarkably similar to today’s jars, and mapping regional pickle and preserve styles across China. Sichuan’s humid subtropical climate makes it ideal for fermentation, and paocai remains central to local home cooking, eaten plain, dressed in chili oil, or cooked into dishes like fish-fragrant eggplant.

As someone who loves food museums and pickles, my hopes were high. But the complex felt unfinished and under-visited. The museum was nearly empty, and when we asked where else we could learn about paocai (especially how to make the best paocai we just tasted), the security guard shrugged: “There’s not much to see.”

Ya’an

From Meishan, we drove to Ya’an (雅安), a not very touristy but historically significant city. Once a key stop on the Tea Horse Road (茶马古道), an ancient route where tea from Yunnan and Sichuan was traded with horses from Tibet. Now a waypoint to the Tibetan plateau. It’s also, crucially for food lovers, the birthplace of Sichuan pepper. We stopped at three parts of Ya’an, Mingshan district, Hanyuan (its biggest town, Jiuxiang), and Yingjing.

Sweet Dew Tea of Mengding

Ya’an is also one of Sichuan’s most important tea-growing regions. Its most renowned variety is Mengding Ganlu (蒙顶甘露, “Sweet Dew of Mengding”), an ancient green tea cultivated on the summit of Mount Meng. Unlike fully toasted green teas, this one is only half-toasted; its curled leaves are covered in fine white hairs and brew into a mellow, gently sweet cup with little bitterness. Beyond Sweet Dew, the region also produces yellow tea (黄茶) and Tibetan black tea (藏茶), a fermented, brick-pressed tea traditionally traded along the ancient Tea-Horse Road.

At the foot of the mountain, there was a small-scale tea culture museum. It honors Wu Lizhen (吴理真), who is believed to have planted the first cultivated tea tree here in the mountains, in the Western Han Dynasty. It also exhibits the extremely challenging route and the carrying tools for the Tea Horse Road trail, and how the Mengding tea was honored as a tribute tea since the Tang dynasty.

Across the museum is an open-air tea market for wholesale, mostly vendors, with very few customers. We sampled green teas from a woman who runs a small farm with her father. Vendors livestreamed sales on Douyin (Chinese TikTok), modern commerce meets ancient crop.

A packaging shop revealed how humble wholesale leaves become glossy boutique shop gifts: fed into a machine that spits out two-gram packets before layering them into ornate boxes of your choice, doubling or tripling the price in the process.

Hanyuan: Gas Station Beef Hot Pot

Farther west, we reached Hanyuan (汉源), a mountainous agricultural region producing some of Sichuan’s best peppercorns (known as tribute Sichuan pepper). It’s also known for cherries, mandarins, wild vegetables, and yellow cattle beef. We didn’t reach the city center but visited Juxiang (九襄), one of its largest towns. In mid-May, cherry trees on the hillsides were still wrapped in paper bags awaiting harvest, though early fruit was already being sold roadside in bamboo baskets.

Travelers driving west from Chengdu often stop here to eat, prompting locals to open restaurants near the gas station along the highway. The resulting specialty is “gas station beef” (加油站牛肉): essentially beef hot pot with fresh beef and tripe. My dad dug into his WeChat contacts and found one he stopped at years ago en route to Garzê (the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan); miraculously, it was still there.

The restaurant was a farmhouse courtyard overlooking the hills, serving daily fresh beef. We ordered cuts by weight and blanched them in two broths, spicy and mild, alongside seasonal vegetables.

Spring offered three local greens: Sichuan pepper leaves; san pian (“three pieces”), which turned out to be deer-shaped wild garlic; and huihui cai, or lamb’s quarter. The pepper leaves carried a gentle numbing tingle, softer than biting into a peppercorn. The drink was more modern, a locally brewed Sichuan pepper beer with questionable graphics, but the taste leaned more floral than numbing.

It was my first time trying these greens, although later research revealed that wild garlic and lamb’s quarter (灰菜/藜) have been foraged in China for millennia, appearing in texts as early as the Classic of Poetry.

Jiuxiang Old Town: Flat Bread and Fried Potatoes

Deeper in the mountains, we reached Jiuxiang old town. Unlike many of China’s increasingly commercialized “ancient towns,” Jiuxiang still looks and feels old. A handful of streets preserve Qing- and Ming-era homes, with wide stone alleys leading to a Ming-dynasty paifang. The community today is mostly elderly, and you still see traces of the past, old supply-and-marketing cooperative signs, faded but intact.

Compared to Anchang Ancient Town in Shaoxing, where Starbucks occupies prime real estate, Jiuxiang has only a few unattended shops selling Sichuan pepper products and century eggs. On a quiet weekday afternoon, the streets were empty, shops shuttered, and only the clack of Mahjong tiles from teahouses broke the silence. “It feels like the Sichuan of the 80s,” my mom said.

Not far from the entrance, an elderly couple was making guokui (锅盔), a leavened flatbread found across Sichuan (some stuffed with meat and fried). Their version was the simplest jiaoyan guokui (椒盐锅盔), seasoned with salt and Sichuan pepper. The stall was no more than a roadside table and a traditional coal-briquette (fengwo mei) oven, the kind most households abandoned once natural gas arrived in the 90s. The husband kneaded and shaped the dough while the wife tended the heat, baking the breads directly around he coals beneath a heavy iron plate. They’ve been making guokui longer than I’ve been alive, at least three decades. We arrived just in time for a fresh batch: flaky, warm, deeply comforting.

On a side street, a woman running a decades-old stall called Little Sister Snack served fried potatoes (炸洋芋). Whole, slow-fried potatoes with crisp skins and creamy interiors, finished with a thick, fragrant sauce of sweet flour paste, soy meal, and spices. Locally grown potatoes, cultivated at higher elevations, contain more starch and fry up at a lower temperature to achieve that ideal texture. Her recipe, she said, had been refined across generations of women (her mom and grandma), and she preferred to keep the details secret.

I had planned to try zha zha noodles (榨榨面), freshly pressed buckwheat noodles with pickled vegetables, but after so much food, I had to take a conscious pause.

Yingjing: Black Clay Ceramics and Bang Bang Chicken

Driving back north, we made a brief stop in Yingjing (荥经), another county under Ya’an’s jurisdiction, known for its black clay ceramics and Bang Bang chicken.

Yingjing’s black clay ceramics (黑砂器) are made from local gray clay mixed with burnt coal. For centuries, craftsmen here have produced large cooking vessels prized for their ability to retain flavor and nutrients, and often used for preparing Chinese herbal medicines. At the workshop of artist Zhu Qingping, visitors can climb into the backyard to watch pieces being shaped, trimmed, and fired at temperatures exceeding 1,300ºC. If you’re lucky, you might even catch a firing in progress.

We only had enough luggage space to bring two more artisanal tea cups back to Berlin. Like the larger vessels, they were made from black clay—but the firing produced a warm, light-brown hue. The staff explained that “the clay and glaze react in the kiln and undergo a transformation called yao bian (窑变).”

Hearing that we were searching for a local specialty in Yingjing, the shop staff insisted we try Big Bro Bang Bang Chicken (大师兄棒棒鸡).

It’s debatable whether bang bang chicken (棒棒鸡) truly originated here, as many claim it comes from Leshan, but variations of chicken dressed in chili oil appear all over Sichuan, to the point where its exact birthplace feels almost beside the point. What’s clear, though, is where the name comes from.

In a tiny one-person shop, the chef, likely the “big bro” himself, set a poached chicken on a wooden board and lifted a heavy hammer, the bang (棒) that gives the dish its name. With practiced rhythm, he used the hammer to guide his cleaver cleanly through bone and flesh, reducing the chicken to neat, elegant pieces. During the Chinese New Year rush, he told us, his son comes home from school and helps with the hammering so orders can move faster.

He slid the pieces into a bowl and added chicken stock, house-made chili oil, and a few seasonings, including ground Sichuan pepper. The aroma rose immediately, and I couldn’t help letting out a small gasp. He smiled, clearly pleased, and added that the chicken is free-range and grain-fed, and the chili oil and broth are entirely homemade. “Not like those internet-famous places that use ‘technology,’” he said, using the Chinese slang for food additives.

Back at the hotel, we opened the takeaway box (the staff kindly pretended not to notice). Chef Big Brother had every reason to be confident. The skin was springy, the meat impossibly tender, and everything was swathed in a chili-oil broth so aromatic and well-balanced that not drinking it felt like a crime. It was one of the best chicken dishes I’ve had all year. The only contender, in hindsight, was a plate I ate at a two-Michelin-star restaurant in Berlin, a contrast that only made this little shop in Yingjing feel even more extraordinary.

Read more about my food-focused travels in China:

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After spending all of August cooking with different types of wheat noodles, I devoted October to rice and glass noodles. Quite voluntarily, and with no regrets.

It’s no exaggeration to say that China has an incredible variety of rice and glass noodle dishes. I grew up in several Sichuan cities, each with its own signature bowl: the brothy, delicate rice noodle soup with bamboo and beef from Mianyang; the thicker, freshly made noodles with fried dough from my mom’s hometown of Nanchong; and in Chengdu, the chewy, QQ-textured, hot-and-sour suan la fen. Head a few hundred kilometers southeast to Guiyang and you’ll find fermented thick rice noodles with beef and lamb; go south to Yunnan and you’ll encounter a dozen more regional specialties.

The World of Fen

In Mandarin, both rice and glass noodles are generally called fěn (粉), in contrast to miàn (面), which refers to wheat-based noodles. Chinese cooks have been working with fen for centuries: the 6th-century text Qimin Yaoshu recorded an early version made by pressing a rice-and-broth paste through a horn pierced with holes, an ancestor of today’s rice noodle press. The result was described as “jade-colored, bouncy, and smooth,” comparable to fine wheat noodles.

Unlike wheat noodles, rice and glass noodles are difficult to make at home, requiring precise temperature control and specialized tools. Most people buy them fresh or dried. When shopping, check the ingredient list: look for rice, mung bean, or sweet potato starch, ideally just starch and water. The shape and thickness determine how the noodles are used, which is part of what makes Chinese noodle culture so deeply regional and endlessly fascinating.

And they’re naturally gluten-free!

Rice Noodles

Rice noodles alone could fill an entire book. Known variously as mi fen (米粉), mi xian (米线), or fen gan (粉干), they’re staples across China’s southern provinces. They have a pleasant, bouncy bite and a slippery smoothness that holds up in soups without turning clumpy.

Rice noodles are made by washing, soaking, grinding, mixing, and steaming rice into sheets (like Cantonese ho fun), or by cooking the batter, then extruding it into strands (as in Guangxi’s fresh-pressed mifen), and optionally drying them (this graphic is helpful to learn how they’re made). The basic ingredients are rice and water, sometimes with added other types of starch for elasticity.

Across China’s street food scene, a lot of rice noodles are made fresh. Some regional versions use fermentation, such as Guizhou‘s suan fen (酸粉) or Yunnan’s suanjiang mixian (酸浆米线). In Europe, where fresh noodles are rare, dried versions from Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai brands are most common. Below are the three main types and how to use them.

Thick, Round Rice Noodles

These thick, round noodles are wonderfully versatile. Products are also called laifen (濑粉), fen gan (粉干), and reference their origins—Jiangxi Laifen, Guangxi (or Guilin Mifen), and Yunnan Mixian are the most famous. I like those around 1.5 to 2 millimeters thick; they’re excellent in soups, stir-fries, or dry-tossed dishes. If you can’t find Chinese brands, a close variety is the Vietnamese bún bò Huế noodles. You can use them in dishes like Crossing-the-Bridge noodles from Yunnan, Zunyi lamb rice noodles, Hunan Dry-Tossed Rice Noodles, Liuzhou luo si fen with river snail.

How to cook them: Soak in lukewarm or cold water, then cook separately in boiling water according to the package directions. Once tender, rinse under cold water to remove excess starch, and store in a bowl of cold water until ready to use.

Try them in:

• Yunnan Small Pot Rice Noodles

• Yunnan Rice Noodle with Tofu

Flat Rice Noodles

Flat rice noodles, known as he fen/ ho fun (河粉), and sometimes guo tiao / kway tieu (粿条) in Hakka and Teochew communities, are slightly softer than round rice noodles and shine in both soups and stir-fries.

You can find flat rice noodles in various sizes. For Beef Chow Fun, if you can’t find fresh noodles, dried flat rice noodles about 10 mm wide make the best substitute. Thai and Vietnamese brands work well (the same kind used for Pad See Ew). For soups like Cantonese rice noodle soup or Nanning’s “Old Buddy” noodle soup (老友粉) from Guangxi, choose narrower noodles, such as 3-5 mm wide (also used for Pad Thai).

How to cook them: Soak inn room-temperature or warm (not hot) water until pliable (takes about 30-45 minutes). For soups, parboil briefly before serving. For stir-fries, cover with boiling water for 30 seconds, rinse under cold water, drain, pat dry, and toss with a bit of oil to prevent sticking.

Try them in: Beef Chow Fun

Rice Vermicelli

Rice vermicelli are thin, delicate strands similar in appearance to glass noodles but made from rice rather than bean starch. They’re sometimes labeled “rice sticks.” Use them in stir-fries or soups like Fujian stir-fried Noodles, Singapore rice noodles, or Mianyang rice noodle soup from Sichuan.

Two popular and widely available varieties are Jiangmen Paifen (江门排粉) from Guangdong and Xinzhu mifen (新竹米粉) from Taiwan.

How to cook them: Soak in lukewarm water for 10–20 minutes, or cook directly in boiling water until tender. Soaking isn’t mandatory since they cook quickly.

Glass Noodles

Glass, or cellophane noodles, also known as fen si (粉丝), are made from the starch of beans or tubers, most commonly mung beans, peas, or sweet potatoes. Traditional production involves grinding, extracting starch, forming a paste, heating, extruding, boiling, and drying. In Chinese cooking, they’re generally divided into bean starch noodles (豆粉丝) and potato starch noodles (薯粉丝).

Mung Bean Glass Noodles

When people say “glass noodles,” they often mean these ultra-thin, transparent mung bean threads (also known as mung bean vermicelli), especially longkou fensi (龙口粉丝) from Shandong, with its iconic blue-and-red dragon packaging. They’re made primarily from mung bean starch, sometimes blended with pea starch.

Mung bean noodles are slippery, springy, and excellent at absorbing flavor. They’re often used as a supporting ingredient rather than the star, think Nanjing duck blood and tofu soup (鸭血粉丝汤), Xi’an lamb and flatbread soup (羊肉泡馍), or served with seafood like scallop and shrimp. In northern China, they’re sometimes chopped and mixed into dumpling fillings.

How to cook them: Soak in room-temperature or warm water for about 10–15 minutes until soft. Add directly to dishes that will continue cooking, or boil for 1–2 minutes if serving immediately.

Try them in:

• Tofu and Chive Pockets

• Garlicky Shrimp with vermicelli

A broader version, fen pi (粉皮), is often used in cold salads. Fresh starch noodles are also common, such as Sichuan’s liangfen (凉粉), a jiggly, savory jelly made from pea or mung bean starch.

Sweet potato starch noodles

Sweet potato starch noodles, hongshu fen (红薯粉), are beloved in Sichuan and Chongqing, especially in noodles and stir-fried dishes like Ants Climbing a Tree. Broader versions, kuan fen (宽粉), are popular in hot pot and hot-pot-adjacent street food like maocai (冒菜). You’ll also find sheet-like shao pi (苕皮), used for grilling or hot pot as well.

How to cook them: Soak the noodles for at least 2 hours until pliable. Then cook in the broth until completely through. The soaking step is a must.

Try them in:

• Hot and sour sweet potato noodles (suan la fen)

• Ants climbing a tree

You’d also find potato starch noodles, sometimes labeled shuijing fensi (水晶粉丝, “crystal noodles”), are less common but appear in hot pot and street snacks. In Sichuan, you can even find noodles made from the roots of fern (蕨根粉), prized for their translucent chew.

Beef chow fun is one of my favorite Cantonese noodle dishes. I order it whenever I can, but it’s also one I believe tastes best from the street. I look at my small wok, my electric stove, and the smoke alarm I’ve set off one too many times while making chili oil or seasoning my wok, and I wonder if chasing wok hei is a little too ambitious. Still, it feels worth trying. The main reason is that I don’t live near a great Cantonese restaurant, yet still crave those flavorful, lightly charred noodles.

Beef chow fun, known as Ganchao Niuhe (干炒牛河) in Mandarin, is a stir-fried rice noodle dish with beef slices and vegetables, which is believed to have emerged in Guangzhou’s dai pai dong (street stalls) around the time of the Sino-Japanese war.

Its name gives away what’s important: ganchao niuhe is short for “dry stir-fried ho fun with beef”. Ho fun (he fen, 河粉), or sha he fen (沙河粉), are rice noodles originally made in the city of Shahe near Guangzhou. The cooking method, gan chao (干炒), literally “dry-frying,” means tossing ingredients continuously over high heat until their moisture evaporates, leaving them tender yet lightly crisp, with a delicate char on the edges. That irresistible, smoky aroma known as wok hei is the hallmark of this dish.

A Bit About Wok Hei

Wok hei (镬气)1 is a phrase I encountered more often in English food writing than in Chinese, even though I grew up in a Sichuan family that prized quick, flavorful stir-fries. However, the aroma is familiar. You’d find it in the roadside stalls and night markets, where noodles and rice are tossed over open flames, or dishes that have bao chao (explode-frying) in the name. That live-fire energy, and the flavor it brings, is what people love, and what’s missing from the rise of “pre-prepared food” (预制菜) from central kitchens, a trend that many diners find increasingly frustrating.

According to Chef Pan Yingjun in The Cantonese Chef’s Manual, wok hei is unique to Cantonese cooking and gained popularity in the early 20th century, with the rise of efficient coal stoves equipped with fans and the introduction of the big two-handled wok. Achieving wok hei, he explains, requires tossing ingredients so they’re exposed to intense heat but with control—allowing a delicate char to form without burning. High heat, low moisture, and space in the wok are essential, which is why you should always cook just a small batch at a time. (This video explains it well)

I used to think it was only about heat. However, Pan pointed out a key step: adding a splash of Shaoxing wine while the wok is still piping hot, a technique known as “flashing wine” (攒酒 or 溅酒). When the wine hits the oil, it creates a burst of steam that speeds up cooking and transfers heat even to ingredients away from the flame. The glutinous rice wine caramelizes slightly on contact, adding fragrance and depth. Combined with the smoky char from heating and vigorous tossing, it’s what gives wok hei its layered aroma.

Purists might say you can’t achieve wok hei on a home induction stove. But the dish can still taste wonderful. (We’re still allowed to make pizza at home without a brick oven, after all.) My setup is modest: a carbon-steel wok and a portable induction burner I also use for hot pot nights. It actually heats faster and more evenly than my default electric cooktop. I even bought a kitchen torch following a tip from J. Kenji López-Alt to finish the dish, since the sides of the wok don’t get as hot as the bottom. But if you don’t have one, don’t stress about it.

The Problem with Dried Noodles

Most recipes call for fresh rice noodles, and I trust that’s the best option. But living in Berlin, I haven’t been able to find it for years, so I rely on dried rice noodles instead. The best choice is a broad, 10-millimeter noodle (sometimes labeled XL), which you can find from Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai brands. I’ve tested a few brands and prefer the Thai brand Farmer, which makes thicker noodles that don’t break easily.

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