Kitchen Garden Blog #7: Sichuan

Kitchen Garden Blog #7: Sichuan Cookery

In "the west" our standard way of talking about flavours involves 5 things. Sweet, Sour, Bitter, Salty & Umami (savoury). In the province of Sichuan in western China they identify 23 distinct flavours. There's a saying, "go to China for food, go to Sichuan for flavour." I've loved Sichuan food since Dainty Sichuan first opened its doors in a small, 8 tabled shop on Smith St back in 2003. Then, Sichuan food was relatively unknown in Australia. Since then it has grown to become a dominant theme in food culture. Hot pots are often at the forefront of people's minds, yet many of their single dishes are sublime. In Kitchen Garden we used some school grown potatoes and my home grown beans and eggplants to create three of my favourite Sichuan dishes.  For these dishes we used Fuchsia Dunlop's seminal book, Sichuan Cookery. We made potato threads, dry fried green beans and fish fragrant eggplant. Watching Year 7&8 students hungrily devour a plate of eggplant is always a satisfying site, particularly when many of them had confessed to not liking the oft maligned vegetable before we started. Look it up or get in touch for a recipe and have a go. 

                                         







Cheers, 

John & The Kitchen Garden Crew








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