My boyfriend and I recently finished watching a BBC documentary series called Exploring China: A Culinary Adventure featuring Chefs Ken Hom and Ching He Huang. Throughout the four episodes, the two chefs visit various parts of the country exploring different regions’ style of cooking, visiting and cooking with local families, and relating stories of their own culinary pasts. Something that particularly grabbed my attention was the way in which Ching He Huang kept describing the “numbing heat” of the Sichuan flower pepper and its abundant use in dishes they tasted. During one segment of the show, the pair visit a chilli market in Sichuan province and experience the spice first hand, with Ching He Huang mentioning that she is a little bit scared to try the spice in its raw state despite cooking with it frequently. Having never heard of this spice before, and intrigued by their powerful reactions to it, I just had to try this numbing heat of the Sichuan flower pepper for myself.
Locating the Sichuan pepper was not that difficult, as I found it at a local market in Toronto’s Chinatown. While I was there I picked up the ingredients to make Cantonese chow mein: chicken, shrimp, baby bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, oyster sauce, water chestnuts, and fresh egg noodles. Upon arriving home with my groceries, I showed my boyfriend the little plastic bag full of this strange new spice. While it is named after pepper, the spice looks like a small reddish shell and is actually the empty husk of the fruit from a kind of evergreen tree native to Eastern China and Taiwan. We carefully opened the package and shook out a little bit into the palms of our hands, at first giving it a sniff and noticing a strong citrus scent. After a bit of apprehension we popped it into our mouths. I only tried a single peppercorn because I was slightly afraid of what it might do! At first it just had a citrus taste, pleasant enough. Then my mouth started salivating uncontrollably, to the point of practically drooling. And then it hit me, the “numbing” heat that I had heard Ching He Huang mention over and over again in the documentary. A sort of tingling sensation began to spread across my tongue, to the roof of my mouth, and even a bit down the back of my throat. I have never experienced anything like this before, it was a flavour sensation that was literally a physical sensation, and it wasn’t entirely pleasant. I couldn’t feel my tongue! I quickly ran to the bathroom to rinse out my mouth and brush my teeth, but the numbing of my mouth continued for quite some time afterwards.
After such a strong reaction to the spice I was a bit reluctant to try cooking with it, but I added it to my chow mien anyway to see how it would taste at a lower concentration and paired with food. I bought a special pepper grinder for the occasion, and added just a teensy bit. While eating the chow mien the flavour of the Sichuan flower pepper was much subtler, acting as a sort of flavour enhancer for the rest of the dish. Since it created a similar tingling sensation (although to a lesser degree), the increased salivation helped enhance the flavours of the other ingredients, such as the saltiness of the oyster sauce and the umame-ness of the shrimp. After doing some research, I discovered that the reason why this pins and needles sensation happens after eating the pepper is because it contains a bioactive chemical called Hydroxy-alpha sanshool. This excites the tongue’s nerves and makes the taste buds hypersensitive to touch, and in turn, to taste.
Since this flavour experiment, I have a lot of respect for the Sichuan flower pepper as it is such a powerful spice and flavour enhancer. It sits proudly on my spice rack, and I add a sparing amount to my asian inspired dishes. I want to continue experimenting with it, and have even contemplated making Sichuan flower pepper infused desserts, as I think it would pair interestingly with chocolate. If you have never tried this spice before, I encourage you to go to your local Chinese market and give this intense “numbing heat” a try.
the good karma cook 