Sichuan Pepper and Mala: Tingling, Toasting, Uses
Sichuan pepper is the dried husks of a prickly ash shrub (Zanthoxylum) and is not related to black pepper. It tastes lemony and resinous and makes lips and tongue tingle and go slightly numb. Mala (麻辣) is the name for the combination of this tingle (má) and the heat of chili (là), the trademark of the cooking of Sichuan and Chongqing.
Fact sheet
- Also known as
- Szechuanpfeffer, Huajiao (花椒), roter und grüner Sichuanpfeffer, Blütenpfeffer; verwandt: Sansho (山椒), Timut-Pfeffer
- Origin
- Westchina, vor allem Sichuan, Gansu und Shaanxi
- Taste
- zitronig, harzig, holzig, prickelnd und leicht betäubend auf Zunge und Lippen
- Substitute
- grüner Sichuanpfeffer, Sansho oder Timut-Pfeffer 1:1; ohne Prickeln schwarzer Pfeffer mit Koriandersamen zu gleichen Teilen
- Storage
- ganze Schalen luftdicht, dunkel und trocken mehrere Monate, gemahlen wenige Wochen
- Where to buy
- Gewürzregal im Asialaden, Gewürzhändler, online; ganze Schalen statt Pulver
Flavor: the tingle and the numbness
Bite into a husk and you first taste citrus peel, pine and a little lavender. After a few seconds, your tongue starts to buzz, as if you had licked a battery. Then your lips feel furry, and the effect fades after a few minutes.
The compound responsible is hydroxy-alpha-sanshool. It stimulates nerve endings that otherwise respond to touch and vibration. It has little to do with heat: Sichuan pepper barely burns. In a mala dish, the tingle dampens the burn of the chilies, and you can eat spicier food without your mouth being on fire.
Origin and types
In Chinese the spice is called huājiāo (花椒), literally flower pepper. The shrubs grow in western China, above all in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. Farmers harvest the small capsules, which open as they dry and release their black seed. The seeds taste bitter and crunch, and good product contains hardly any.
- Red Sichuan pepper (红花椒, hóng huājiāo): reddish-brown, warm and woody. The standard type for mapo tofu, chili oil and braised dishes.
- Green Sichuan pepper (青花椒, qīng huājiāo): olive green, fresher, with lime and herb notes and a stronger tingle. Cooks like to use it for fish and cold dishes.
- Relatives: Japanese sansho comes from a close species and usually comes ground in small tins. Timut pepper from Nepal tastes of grapefruit and tingles similarly.
Chinese five-spice powder also contains Sichuan pepper, together with star anise, cassia, cloves and fennel.
Toasting and grinding
Untoasted, Sichuan pepper tastes flat and a little soapy. Only in the pan does it develop its aroma.
- Spread 2 tbsp husks on a light-colored plate and pick out stems and black seeds.
- Warm a dry pan over medium heat, add the husks and toast them for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring, until they smell fragrant and darken slightly. If they smoke, the pan is too hot.
- Tip them onto a cold plate and let them cool.
- Grind finely in a mortar or spice grinder and sift through a fine sieve. Throw away the hard husk bits left in the sieve.
Freshly ground, the powder loses noticeable fragrance after two to three weeks. So grind small amounts. For braises and broths, add the husks whole to the liquid or fry them in oil at the start.
Uses: mala dishes, chili oil and hot pot
Sichuan pepper appears in three forms: whole, fried in oil, ground and sprinkled over the finished dish, or as a flavored oil. The best-known dishes:
- Mapo tofu: silken tofu in a sauce of doubanjiang, ground meat and chili, sprinkled with ground Sichuan pepper at the end.
- Dan dan noodles: wheat noodles with chili oil, sesame paste, ground meat and a pinch of pepper powder.
- Kung pao chicken: chicken with peanuts, dried chilies and whole pepper husks from the wok. Contains peanuts.
- Shui zhu yu: fish in broth, over which you pour hot oil with chili and Sichuan pepper at the end.
- Sichuan hot pot: a broth of beef tallow, bean paste, chilies and plenty of pepper husks, in which everyone at the table cooks meat and vegetables. The setup with broth, dips and ingredients is explained on the page hot pot at home.
For chili oil, heat 250 ml neutral oil with 1 tbsp Sichuan pepper, 1 star anise and a piece of cassia to about 120 degrees (250 °F), let it steep for five minutes and pour it through a sieve over 30 g chili flakes. A crunchy variant with garlic and shallots is the chili crisp. In Japan, sansho seasons a soy sauce with sansho pepper for grilled eel and fish.
Substitutes for Sichuan pepper
Only the Zanthoxylum family delivers the tingle. Green Sichuan pepper, sansho or Timut pepper replace each other 1:1, with sansho coming out slightly milder. If you have none of these, mix black pepper with coriander seeds in equal parts. The mix matches the lemony, woody side, but the numbness is missing.
Buying and storing
You find whole husks at an Asian grocery store on the spice shelf, often in bags of 50 to 100 g. Good product is vividly red or green, has hardly any seeds and stems, and smells strongly as soon as you rub a few husks between your fingers. Gray, dusty husks with no smell are old. Spice merchants and online shops carry both colors, and Timut pepper is mostly sold there. Pre-ground powder loses aroma quickly.
Store the husks airtight, dark and dry. Whole, they keep several months this way, and ground, a few weeks. A screw-top jar in the cupboard is enough, and the fridge brings no advantage.