If you love the flavors of dan-dan noodles, Szechuan dry-fried green beans or mapo tofu, there is a secret ingredient that adds a distinctive flavor to these dishes and more. It can be cooked into a master mix with any type of ground meat, or even used on its own for vegan adaptations of Chinese dishes that use a sprinkling of meat as a condiment.
There are many different types of pickled vegetables used in China, each with its own distinctive regional (and probably even familial) variations. I first learned about ya cai 芽菜, a type of picked mustard green sprout/stem, from Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Plenty. I was fortunate that our local Chinese grocery store stocked the Suimiyacai brand, made in Yibin, China. Once I tasted ground pork browned with a tablespoon or two of this wonderfully aromatic, lightly salted condiment, I was hooked.
Shortcut to Love2Chow recipes for Szechuan Master Meat Mix or Vegan Szechuan Master Mix.
I immediately stopped bothering with the more famous pickled mustard green stems called zha cai 榨菜 (Sichuan preserved vegetable), a half-fist-sized preserve that had to be diced into small pieces before being added to the ground meat. Although zha cai does adds a great, slightly sour flavor to pork stir-fries and soups. With its brown sugar, chili, cinnamon and other spices, suimiyacai not only added a richer, more complex flavor, but also the tiny, dark brown fragments enhanced the appearance of the ground meat.
As meat is often used more as a condiment to flavor many Chinese dishes, rather than dominating the plate, many of the recipes I was happily cooking with suimiyacai used only 4 ounces of meat here, and 6 ounces there. I found this to be irritating as I would then have to figure out what to do with the rest of the ground meat.
Back when I was single and just starting to cook, I used to sauté up a master meat mix that I would subsequently transform in multicultural directions. This consisted of ground beef browned with minced garlic, mushrooms and a splash of soy sauce. I would use it as a starting point for spaghetti and meat sauce one day, a Chinese stirfry with frozen mixed vegetables another day, or tacos and microwave nachos until it was gone.
Drawing upon this concept, I created a Szechuan Master Meat Mix (SM3) that works great with ground pork, ground beef or ground turkey.
Some uses for the Love2Chow Szechuan Master Meat Mix (SM3) appear below:
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| Dan Dan Noodles - recipe in Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop |
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| Szechuan Dry-Fried String Beans - recipe in The Breath of a Wok by Grace Young |
Shortcut to Love2Chow recipes for Szechuan Master Meat Mix or Vegan Szechuan Master Mix.
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| Suimiyacai made by Sichuan Yibin Suimi Yacai Co. |
As meat is often used more as a condiment to flavor many Chinese dishes, rather than dominating the plate, many of the recipes I was happily cooking with suimiyacai used only 4 ounces of meat here, and 6 ounces there. I found this to be irritating as I would then have to figure out what to do with the rest of the ground meat.
Back when I was single and just starting to cook, I used to sauté up a master meat mix that I would subsequently transform in multicultural directions. This consisted of ground beef browned with minced garlic, mushrooms and a splash of soy sauce. I would use it as a starting point for spaghetti and meat sauce one day, a Chinese stirfry with frozen mixed vegetables another day, or tacos and microwave nachos until it was gone.
Drawing upon this concept, I created a Szechuan Master Meat Mix (SM3) that works great with ground pork, ground beef or ground turkey.
Some uses for the Love2Chow Szechuan Master Meat Mix (SM3) appear below:
Charky's Basil Eggplant
Although this dish did not originally have meat in it (aside from a bit of fish sauce), adding some leftover SM3 really elevated the eggplant to a whole new level (and it was already popular with friends and family)! The secret here is to use the long, skinny Chinese eggplants. They are tender and can be used right after cutting as they have no bitterness to draw out by salting, in contrast to western eggplants. The basil leaves are left whole and used as a vegetable rather than a garnish. Click here for the recipe. |
| Charky's Basil Eggplant, a Love3Chow recipe |
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