In our ongoing series of “Over Rice Dishes” (a.k.a. Rice Killers, ‘Send the rice down’ dishes, or xiafancai), we’ll swing over to the Sichuan province to look at a couple (perhaps) lesser known abroad Sichuan dishes.
0:00 – Do we really need to explain why?
1:01 – Zha cai
3:12 – Yuxiang Omelette
7:23 – Celery with Beef, aka The Dish
11:01 – We’ll do more, promise
LIANGBAN ZHACAI (凉拌榨菜, a Zhacai cold dish)
* Zhacai (榨菜), 1 pack, 80g
* Garlic (大蒜), 1 clove, minced
* Cilantro (芫荽), 1 sprig, chopped
* Toasted white sesame seeds (熟白芝麻), 1 tsp
* Sugar, 1/4 tsp
* Dark Chinese vinegar (陈醋 or 香醋), 1/2 tsp
* Toasted sesame oil (麻油/香油), 1/2 tsp
Unpack the zhacai, mix with everything, and done.
FISH FRAGRANT OMELETTE (鱼香烘蛋)
* Egg, 4
* To mix with the eggs:
Cornstarch (生粉), 1 tsp
Water, 1 tbsp
Vinegar (醋), 1/4 tsp
* Lao Gan Ma “pickled chili” OR Hunan Chopped Chili OR Sichuanese Pickled Erjingtiao (糟辣椒 or 剁椒 or 泡二荆条), 1 heaping tbsp or 20g, finely minced
* Aromatics:
Ginger (姜), half inch or 5g, minced
Garlic (大蒜), 3-4 big cloves or 10g, minced
Scallion (小葱), 1 sprig or 12-15g, separate the white and green, minced
* Sauce:
Soy sauce (生抽/酱油), 2 tsp
Chinese dark vinegar (陈醋 or 香醋), 2 tsp
Sugar, 2 tsp
Salt, 1/4 tsp
MSG (味精), 1/4 tsp
Potato starch (生粉/土豆淀粉), 1/2 tbsp
Water, 1/2 cup
Mince the pickled chili and aromatics (separate out the scallion green), mix the sauce, set aside.
Mix starch with water and vinegar, crack in the eggs, whisk till foamy.
Long yau: get your wok piping hot, shut off heat, add in 3 tbsp oil and give it a swirl. Heat the oil till a drop of egg can puff up immediately when added in.
Pour in the egg, when the side is form, start pushing it towards the center for form layers, repeat this motion, meanwhile tilt and swirl the wok to cook the bottom evenly. Once no liquid egg is flowing, gently flip and fry the other side for about 2 minutes.
Heat off, take the egg out on a serving plate, set aside.
Add 1 tbsp oil to wok, heat on low, add in the pickled chili, fry till oil is stained red, then add in the aromatics, fry for 1 minutes. Stir the sauce, then add to the wok. Turn the heat to high, keep stirring. Once it come to a boil and thickens slightly, add in most of the scallion, stir. Heat off.
Ladle sauce onto the omelette, sprinkle on the remaining scallion.
MINCED BEEF WITH CELERY (芹菜碎牛肉, aka THE DISH)
* Celery (western 西芹 or Chinese 香芹), 220g
* Beef loin (牛里脊), 150g, minced
* Marinade for the beef:
Dark soy sauce (老抽), 1/4 tsp
Liaojiu aka Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍酒), 1 tsp
Salt, 1/8 tsp
Cornstarch (生粉), 1/2 tsp
* Sichuan chili broad bean paste, i.e. Pixiandoubanjiang (郫县红油豆瓣酱), 1 tbsp or 15g
* Aromatics:
Ginger (姜), half inch or 5g, minced
Garlic (大蒜), 3-4 big cloves or 10g, minced
* Sauce for finishing the stir fry:
Soy sauce (生抽/酱油), 1/2 tbsp
MSG (味精), 1/4 tsp
Cornstarch (生粉), 1 tsp
Water, 2 tbsp
Cut the beef into strips then a dice, then mince for 5 minutes. Mix with the marinade and set side.
Peel off any fibrous outer layer with western celery. Cut into half, split the wider part into 3-4 strips and thinner part into 2-3. Cut into half cm dice. Mix with 1/4 tsp salt, purge for 10 minutes. Roughly chop the celery leaves, set aside sperately.
Mince the aromatics and make the sauce.
Squeeze the celery to expel as much water as possible.
Long yau: get your wok piping hot, shut off the heat, add in 2 tbsp oil, give it a swirl to get a nice nonstick surface.
Heat on medium high, add in beef, quickly break it up. Fry it until the color’s changed and the beef is cooked.
Heat off, scooch the beef to the side, add in 1 tbsp oil then the chili broad bean paste. Fry on low heat for ~1.5 minute till the oil is stained red.
Add in the aromatics, fry for ~1.5 minute till fragrant, mix beef back in. Turn heat on high, quick fry then add in celery, another super brief fry, add in the stir fry sauce. Quick mix.
Heat off, add in celery leaves, mix and out.
23 Comments
Hey guys, a few notes:
1. As per an old Sichuan cookbook, for the celery and beef stir fry, you can swirl in some dark Chinese vinegar along the side of the wok when finishing stir frying for some fragrance. Or you can sprinkle in some huajiao Sichuan peppercorn powder/oil for some slight numbness.
2. You can add other kinds of vegetables with the minced beef, such as the pickled long beans and chopped chili that were mentioned in the video. You can also use cilantro, garlic scape, garlic chives, edamame, peas, cucumber, pickled chilis. Basically anything crunchy or fragrant.
3. The beef and celery stir fry is often finished with some green garlic too, but in this video we’re using just garlic to add fragrance some fragrance and keep it simple.
4. I know we always struggle with convincing people to hand mince, so… could you use supermarket ground meat for this? Well, there’s two issues that we’ve found using pre-ground meat for stirfrying – first, because it’s so finely ground, the final texture of the beef ends up sort of ‘mealy’ instead of ‘springy’. It’s not inedible or anything, but there’s a sort of hamburger-helper quality to the final dish that we find a little off putting in the context of Chinese food. Second, ground beef loves to suck up oil, which can be an issue because having a flavorful oil base is pretty much a prerequisite for many Sichuan stir fries.
5. There are, of course, some workarounds. One possible route that you could go would be to fry the ground beef past done, until it’s crispy and has released the frying oil (ala Sichuan style Mapo Tofu). This would be perfectly delicious, but you’d likely want to significantly cut back on the beef and make it more of a ‘flavoring agent’ for a celery dominant dish.
6. And probably not-so-coincidentally? That’s exactly the route that Dunlop goes in her recipe (at least the one in Food of Sichuan). We didn’t want to go the exact same route as her though, so if you’re using supermarket ground beef? Just follow her recipe instead, though maybe season with a touch of MSG at the end 😉
7. One day I hope we can convince y’all to hand mince though. Front to back, this style of quick hand mince for stir fries takes us about ten minutes (a hand mince for stuff like dumpling fillings is a little more intense as is needs to reach a sort of pasty stage, 15-18 minutes front to back). I know that that even that ten minutes isn’t an insignificant amount of time for an everyday meal, but it really does make a big difference to the final texture. You can also, if you like, hand mince a large batch and freeze it: frozen hand minced meat will be much better texturally than supermarket ground beef.
8. So the fish fragrant omelette is called “Yu Xiang Hong Dan (鱼香烘蛋)” in Chinese. “Hong Dan (烘蛋)”, meaning “baked egg” is an egg cooking technique in Sichuan cuisine, which is often either slowly pan frying the egg or deep frying the egg till it’s set and puffy. The deep-fried egg is ultra crispy and holds the shape very well, as well as being a superior sauce carrier.
9. Some versions even deep fry each egg individually, then give them all a second deep fry right before serving to make it even crispier, which is sometimes called “crab egg (螃蟹蛋)” because of it’s oval shape and a nice golden color that… kind of looks like a crab?
10. Frying up some fatty minced pork for the fish fragrant sauce is another classic approach. With the addition of meat, the fish fragrant sauce turns into a “Yuxiang Shaozi (鱼香绍子)”, meaning the a fish fragrant sauce with minced pork, which is one of the classic rendition of Sichuan fish fragrant sauce.
11. In Sichuan, the zhacai liangban cold dish is often made with the whole uncut fermented zhacai stem you get straight from the market. Because those ones are very salty, people would often cut it up then soak in water for a bit before turning it into a dish.
12. Zhacai is an awesome ingredient to have around. Besides turning it into a liangban cold dish or a stir fry, you can also toss it in a fuck it soup: fry up garlic, add in some marinated pork slivers, add water, bring to a boil, do some basic salt + sugar + MSG + white pepper seasoning, then toss in some zhacai and cilantro, then you have a super simple yet tasty zhacai pork sliver soup, which can be a nice base for some quick noodle soup.
That’s all we can think of for now 🙂
Love these videos with Steph!
More over rice recipes more!!
For "the dish", I've been making one my own way. There's this jar of pickled garlic and peppers that's sour, adds a nice tangy spicy punch. I add that and cook it along with the bean paste. Dunno, it turns the mince into the most insane rice killer. I also use pork mince (to save on cost).
Would you guys consider a video on how to make the preserved mustard greens? I'm sure I'm not the only viewer who can't get them easily pre-made, but can get fresh mustard greens and is willing to make stuff myself
Do you think you could make a xiafancai/rice killers playlist? It would help having them all in once place 🙂
Can you please make "wife's special noodle" dish from Lao Xi'er Noodle House. I can't find any videos on it. It was featured in the worth it noodle episode.
10:25 "Don't make me tell you again about the scooching!"
😁
I've not had that specific dish but I have had similar, and wow is it good! I'll have to make that omelet though…😳🤤😍
Ya Cai is so hard to find in US supermarkets, I’ve been all over the east coast and only saw it once.
"Xiafan-dability" is my new favourite word
many thanks, I made the omelette for supper. It was brilliant definitely having it again… and again and so on.
I’d love to see an edition of Over Rice dishes featuring Fujianese cuisine!
"Mildly spicy"
Sichuan for "You better buckle up!" in Western.
Amazing work. I will use this.
Whenever I get sick and have minimal appetite, I eat plain/mild rice congee with zha cai.
I love this video! Do you have your own recipe for pickled chilies? What kind of stove/BTU power are you using for your outdoor wok cooking? By the way, your hair looks amazing in pigtail braids!
8:25 Minor cultural nitpick: throwing your hat into the ring doesn't refer to a literal circle, but rather a boxing ring. Which is a square. Don't ask questions.
Oh wow. I just made "The Dish" and it is awesome. I took some out and added a few fermented black beans as well and I'm absolutely addicted. Tried the sichuan pepper AND oil, the contrast of flavours and numbing with rice. I'm going to try it on a thick-ish congee next 🙂 Thank you for sharing
Oh man, I can see why “The Dish™ is so popular! I’ll have to give it a try soon!
Tasty looking stuff!
I so love pickled mustard greens. Pork and Pickled Mustard Greens was my introduction to non-American chinese food.
I am something of a pickle-head. And a chili-head. And when you started in on zhacai, my first thought was "Okay. I got to get me some of this stuff."
I found it on the 'Net, and some arrives tomorrow. Ten packages of the kind you showed in your video.
Let the experiments begin. If nothing else, I also have a lot of rice…
Edit: The zha cai arrived, I tried one of the ten pack I got… and I have a sneaking feeling that the other nine may not last that long. This stuff is good.
I laughed so hard when you had the Fuchsia Dunlop bit, I saw The Food Of Sichuan randomly in a bookstore last year and thought it had a nice list of recipes, so I suggested it as a Christmas present. Happy to hear she's good enough to be your nemesis!
Somehow have never heard of "the dish" before (perhaps bc I've been vegetarian or vegan for the past decade) but am looking forward to trying it, albeit with impossible meat instead.