Sichuan Pepper - Culinary Uses

Culinary Uses

Sichuan pepper has a unique aroma and flavour that is not hot or pungent like black, white or chili peppers. Instead, it has slight lemony overtones and creates a tingly numbness in the mouth (caused by its 3% of hydroxy-alpha-sanshool) that sets the stage for hot spices. According to Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking, second edition, p429 they are not simply pungent; "they produce a strange, tingling, buzzing, numbing sensation that is something like the effect of carbonated drinks or of a mild electrical current (touching the terminals of a nine-volt battery to the tongue). Sanshools appear to act on several different kinds of nerve endings at once, induce sensitivity to touch and cold in nerves that are ordinarily nonsensitive, and so perhaps cause a kind of general neurological confusion."

Recipes often suggest lightly toasting the tiny seedpods, then crushing them before adding them to food. Only the husks are used; the shiny black seeds are discarded or ignored as they have a very gritty sand-like texture. It is generally added at the last moment. Star anise and ginger are often used with it prominently in spicy Sichuan cuisine. It has an alkaline pH and a numbing effect on the lips when eaten in larger doses. Ma la (Chinese: 麻辣; pinyin: málà; literally "numbing and spicy"), common in Sichuan cooking, is a combination of Sichuan pepper and chili pepper, and it is a key ingredient in má là hot pot, the Sichuan version of the Chinese traditional dish. It is also a common flavouring in Sichuan baked goods such as sweetened cakes and biscuits.

Sichuan pepper is also available as an oil (Chinese: 花椒油, marketed as either "Sichuan pepper oil", "Bunge Prickly Ash Oil", or "Hwajiaw oil"). In this form it is best used in stir-fry noodle dishes without hot spices. The preferred recipe includes ginger oil and brown sugar cooked with a base of noodles and vegetables then rice vinegar and Sichuan pepper oil are added after cooking.

Hua jiao yan (simplified Chinese: 花椒盐; traditional Chinese: 花椒鹽; pinyin: huājiāoyán) is a mixture of salt and Sichuan pepper, roasted and browned in a wok and served as a condiment to accompany chicken, duck and pork dishes. The peppercorns can also be lightly fried in order to make a spicy oil with various uses.

Sichuan peppercorns are one of the traditional ingredients in the Chinese spice mixture five-spice powder.

In Indonesian Batak cuisine sichuan pepper is ground and mixed with chilis and seasonings into a green sambal Tinombur or chili paste, to accompany grilled pork, carp and other regional specialities. Arsik in one of Batak Tapanuli dishes which use Shinchuan pepper as spice.

Sichuan pepper is one of the few spices important for Nepali (Gurkha), Tibetan and Bhutanese cookery of the Himalayas, because few spices can be grown there. One Himalayan specialty is the momo, a dumpling stuffed with vegetables, cottage cheese or minced yak meat, buff (water buffalo meat) or pork and flavoured with Sichuan pepper, garlic, ginger and onion is served with tomato and Sichuan pepper based gravy. Nepalese style chow-mein are steamed and served dry, together with a fiery Sichuan pepper sauce.

It is believed that it can sanitize meat that may not be so fresh, although in reality it may only mask foul flavours. The foul-smell masking property of Sichuan pepper made it popular in offal dishes.

In Korean cuisine, two species are used: Z. piperitum and Z. schinifolium.