A spicy challenge: We talk all things Sichuan Pepper while I take mouth numbing shots of it. How to cook with this Sichuan spice, where the peppercorn comes from, and what it does to our taste buds. Also: What does it have to do with chilies and black pepper?
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► Sichuan Pepper Salt (椒盐)
3 Tbsp sea salt
1 Tbsp Sichuan peppercorns, any type or blend
1/2 tsp msg (optional)
► Sichuan Pepper Oil (花椒油 / 麻油)
3 Tbsp Sichuan Peppercorns, any type or blend
1 cup of oil
1 piece of star anise (optional)
3 slices of ginger (optional)
► Spicy Chicken / Lazi Ji (辣子鸡)
300g chicken, bone in is traditional but I prefer boneless
1 Tbsp Chinese cooking wine
1 Tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp grated ginger
1 egg
1/2 cup corn starch or potato starch, or more until nice and thiccc
oil for deep frying
1/2 cup raw peanuts (sub roasted if needed, add later)
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp grated garlic
1/2 cup chopped spring onion, white parts
1 Tbsp red Sichuan peppercorns
2 handfuls dried red Sichuan chilies (I love bullet head 子弹头)
salt to taste
1 tsp sugar
sprinkle of msg
little drizzle of sesame oil, 1/2 tsp
1/2 cup finely chopped spring onions, green parts
small (or big) bunch of coriander, cut into 3-4cm pieces
toasted sesame seeds for garnish
► Lazy Cook’s Mapo Dofu (懒人麻婆豆腐)
2 Tbsp Sichuan peppercorn oil
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp grated garlic
1/2 cup chopped spring onion, white parts
1 tsp Doubanjiang (豆瓣酱)
1/2 tsp black bean paste (蒜蓉豆豉)
1 block of smoked tofu, cubed and blanched
1 cup water
1/2 tsp corn starch, dissolved in a bit of water
garnish with chopped spring onion, green parts
► Salt and Pepper Shrimp, sort of Cantonese style (椒盐虾)
300g king prawns, deveined. Some like shell on, I like shell off
1 Tbsp Chinese cooking wine
1/2 cup corn starch or potato starch
oil for deep frying
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp grated garlic
1/2 cup chopped spring onion, white parts
Sichuan pepper salt to taste
1/2 cup chopped spring onion, green parts for garnish
1,5 Tbsp olive oil
150g lean bacon
750g beef, stew meat
1 large white onion
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 carrots, in chunks
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs of thyme
2 sprigs of parsley
1 bottle burgundy red wine (or any Pinot Noir)
salt & pepper to taste
7-8 button mushrooms, halved
3-4 very small onions, halved
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
1 sprig of thyme
salt, pepper
500g baby potatoes, steamed
for finishing:
1 sprig of thyme
1 clove of garlic
1 Tbsp butter
finely chopped parsley
► MY NAME IS ANDONG
Food is so powerful in bringing cultures together – something I learned when I lived in China. So let’s travel, eat, cook, and learn from each other! I am a filmmaker from Berlin, Germany and make weekly videos about cooking and food culture.
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39 Comments
You are crazy.
You voice became stuck after you swallowed peppercorn.
I love it in spaghetti aglio e olio with some capers, anchovies and cherry tomatoes. And A LOT of chili.
Thank you for sharing – I have Sichuan Pepper in a grinder and use it for breaded fishor Schnitzel – gives it a light lemon note
I use red in my fried chicken. Toasted and milled to a powder then added to flour with salt and pepper. Dredge chicken in flour mix, beaten egg, flour mix then deep fry!
You came for the Sichuan, you stayed to see Andong suffer. I will make the Sichuan-Salt btw, that looks nice!
The northernmost North American relative, Zanthoxylum americanum, is known as "toothache tree" (as well as "prickly ash" b/c of the Fraxinus like foliage and the thorns) b/c of the Novocaine effect. Historically, Americans have used the numbing property for rural medicine but we don't cook with it. Possibly some of the native tribes did, but I think the first reaction of most people would be "this is weird; it might be dangerous."
Unrelated Spilathes (Para cress, bullseye weed, which is a daisy related to Bidens) has similar numbing heat, though I have not done a deep dive into its chemistry.
Just made some oil with the peppercorn, star anise, garlic and chili. Hope it will turn up good
Appreciate the knowledge and information but please don't eat any more peppercorns like that
Oh my God you are awesome.
hhmmm, every evening I take a cup of tea with a dime-worth of both green, red sichuan and pepper-extract. I usally end-up chewing the peppercorns for 10-15 minutes
2:36 I'm from Korea. We actually distinguish between this (초피 Cho-pee: 花椒) and a variant (산초 San-cho, from which the chemical "shanshool" derived).
Dan Dan mien
Do you still get the numbing effect when you grind them or infuse them in oil?
First time visiting your channel thryve says I need Sichuan pepper in my gut biome. Really enjoyed the video 10 out of 10 every dish looked amazing.
I just bought some of this spice out of curiosity. I ground some up and ate it raw. That was by far the strangest experience with food of my life. The tiniest bit (I'm talking putting my index finger in the powder and eating that) made my whole mouth to tingle, water, and also made me slightly nauseous. Eating it raw by itself was a terrible idea.
I can't handle spicy food but it sure does fascinate me anyway.
Hmmm… "Non-culinary use for Sichuan-pepper"… Is he gonna put this stuff on his An-Dong? I think that is what he was implying toward the end of this show…
And, eew, yuck! … That smoked-tofu looks NASTY as hell… He made a strange kind of "Sichuan-pepper oil", that is good, but "Mapo" tofu is not made using that type of weird tofu-thing… Mapo tofu also requires red bean paste and fermented black bean and chopped pork-belly… Isn't "Andong" supposed to be a Chinese/German guy or something?
very entertaining andong
I like to sneak some sichuan green peppercorn powder into spicy Italian and Mexican dishes, just to get some saliva-inducing tingle. What I’d really like to try but haven’t done yet is use green sichuan pepper in some sort of tangy dessert.
The video is everywhere. . . Does he ever discuss removing the seeds?
I have used Sehuan pepper in avgolemono sauce for greek-style roasted chicken and potatoes. Success!
i can't believe you did that on camera lmao, chewing those is much worse than most of the food pranks….
Yeah I kinda miss this kind of "my name is Andong and you're watching Jackass"-kind of videos ^^ I imagine Asian people laughing their a** off watching a european guy goofing around with hardcore flavors 😛
I love pairing them with habanero to focus on the citrus and floral flavors
Anyone else sitting in front of the video after also nuking their own mouth going "wtf?"
Oh wow, you're shopping are the same Asia market as me
10 or more years ago I tried to make some chinese recipes but lost interest because I thought I could never get the spice tolerance I needed. I was eating the whole dried chilis in the dishes because the recipes didn't mention they were just for aroma and to flavor the oil and that you weren't expected/supposed to eat all of them.
Now I know better and a whole world has opened up. I have just eaten dry fried string beans with sichuan peppercorns. I cooked the dish, plated it, and then fished out the dried chili peppers and the sichuan peppercorns (I always count how many I put in). This way I can eat without the danger of accidentally biting on a sichuan peppercorn. I chewed on a whole clove once and it was awful.
Ok dass hier ist wirklich total verrückt. I'm seeing you buy my favorite pepper in a Asian store…the brand name is Hein….which is co accedentely the last name of my former Indonesian/Chinese husband.
Really? Yes Really..but the story goes on. Our son is a very very tall very skinny young man. In Deutschland wird er der magere Hein genannt 🤔🤯 we are from the Netherlands living near the German border
I just put some red sichuan peppers in an empty salt grinder and grinded some in my coffee. It tasted pretty good!
I just got this ingredient and it is soooo weird!!! It’s like chewing on a flowery lemon peel. I can definitely see using it in a dish as an ingredient, but raw just seems crazy.
I didnt know there was a green version. I bought the red one and I have not dared to try it yet. But other green things worth trying: Green peppercorns. In UK these are available in small jars I think they are pickled. so much flavour, a bit of heat, not too much. Crush them.
Green Coriander seeds! If you grow coriander, it usually goes to seed too quickly, but try the green seeds. They taste like cilantro but with a little bit of the dried Coriander flavour. Again, crush or chop them.
How about a similar video about cloves? I mean, you can use cloves as an emergency remedy for tooth aches thanks to their numbing properties. 😄
Although szechuan pepper is more known for it's culinary use in the orient prickly ash grows wild in woods and moist meadows in southern and southwestern Ontario. I don't know if our indigenous folks used this spice or not. I have never found reference to it having been used locally. I'm going to give it a try since it grows wild on our property.
I can understand what this guy is trying to say… I first tried Sichuan peppercorn in a Bazar.. there was a spice guy and I was looking at spices and he goes- take on of these and chew on it… I chew… and the first 5-10 seconds it was nothing and then it started the numbing effect… It's spicy but different kind( kind of similar to menthol) .. after 30-40 seconds of chewing 1 peppercorn my tongue was numb burning and tangy, I even panicked for a second and that was only one corn and this guy out there taking shots. I knew what Sichuan peppercorns were but had no idea how they tasted. I had imagined they would be similar to black pepper but that was a completely new experience.
Usually people take one sichuan peppercorn to chew on, he takes a full on shot and nukes his taste buds
Did anyone tasted a "soapy" aftertaste ? the numbing sensation is indeed very interesting but the weird aftertaste didn't go well for my taste .. Bought the peppercorns in a authentic chinese grocery, of the chinatown of Sao paulo – Brasil . I dont know if the quality was bad or i did something wrong ( heated in a pan for waking up the eseential oils, grinded very well and added to a mapo tofu dish … Thanks for the explanatory and great quality video
so if i just grind up the peppercorns by themselves or with the salt and sprinkle them on food I can get the numbing sensation?
Hey Andong! Thanks for the video but I have to say I just wanted to learn about the Szechuan pepper, not see an episode of jackass – I think you can skip the "challenges"
😛