Sichuan Cooking Class

Sauces used for the class

Sichuan food has fascinated me, ever since I read "Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper", Fuschia Dunlop’s evocative account of immersing herself in life in Sichuan, and learning how to cook authentic Sichuan food in an authentic Sichuan cooking school. She was the only foreigner there, and it certainly helped that she speaks fluent mandarin!

I tried out a Sichuan cooking class today, and learnt to cook a spicy Lotus root cold dish, twice cooked pork, beef with pickled long beans. Using the correct ingredients and the right techniques, really helped to bring out the authentic flavours. Plus we enjoyed what we cooked, for lunch! The class was held in the middle of a little hutong, which made it  a bit of an adventure to find.

The pollution hit the “Hazardous” level yesterday, so I stayed in. Today, the local papers were naturally furious about the pollution. The causal link between the hazardous level of PM 2.5 in the air, and various serious health problems, is already scientifically proven, and was cited again.

My camera’s memory stick went kaput yesterday, so I lost my photos of the Ditan CNY temple fair, and visit to the Temple of Heaven.