bossert@dataio.UUCP (John Bossert) (04/03/85)
To those of you enamored of Szechwan cooking: How do you up the heat
value of your food? My Szechwan beef is just not as hot as it should
be and I don't know how to extract more flavor from the dried peppers.
Suggestions?
John
--
John Bossert
Data I/O Corporation
Redmond, WA
uw-beaver!entropy!dataio!{bossert,usenet}eac@drutx.UUCP (CveticEA) (04/05/85)
Heating up Szechwan food: If the hot peppers just aren't cutting it, try adding hot pepper oil when you add the other sauce ingredients such as soy sauce. Start with a teaspoon for a four serving recipe and go from there. Betsy Cvetic ihnp4!drutx!eac
haynes@decwrl.UUCP (Charles Haynes) (04/06/85)
Try adding some "Szechuan Chili Paste" to it. The paste is basically
ground peppers and oil, sometimes with garlic added. Another thing you
could try is adding more peppers (of course!). Or you could add hot
oil. If you are pre-cooking the peppers, you can adjust the heat of the
dish by cooking the peppers more or less. Pre-cook the peppers more to
reduce the heat, fry them less to increase the heat. Cooking them also
imparts a slightly smoky, nutty flavor that I like, so I usually up the
heat by adding more peppers, or adding chili paste. The seeds are the
main source of heat in peppers, so removing the seeds before cooking
will reduce the heat significantly without changing much of the rest of
the character of a dish.
Good luck!
-- Charlesvch@rruxo.UUCP (V. Hatem) (04/06/85)
You can add hot oil to your dishes to make them a bit hotter. You can make your own hot oil very easily and it can be much hotter than store-bought hot oil. All you have to do is pour a 1/2 cup oil (peanut or sesame works best) into your wok, and heat until it smokes slightly. Then just add your peppers (crushed) to the oil, and let them fry a little bit. Let the mixture cool and you're done! You can strain out the peppers if you like. (The amount of peppers an cooking time vary the power of the oil) When it is cooking be careful of the fumes - they can burn your nose-hair right off!! :-} Vince Hatem Bell Communications Research rruxo!vch --- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | The assumption that a whole system can be made to work better through an | | assault on its conscious elements betrays a dangerous ignorance. This | | has often been the ignorant approach of those who call themselves | | scientists and technologists. | | -The Butlerian Jihad | | by Harq al-Ada | | (Children of Dune, by Frank Herbert, p395) | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
phyllis@utcsri.UUCP (Phyllis Eve Bregman) (04/08/85)
> To those of you enamored of Szechwan cooking: How do you up the heat > value of your food? Buy a jar of chopped, hot red peppers with garlic (similar to what you get in any Szechwan Chinese restaurant), and keep adding until it is hot enough for you. You could also sprinkle chili oil on your beef. You can either buy chili oil in a supermarket or Oriental food store, or you can make it yourself. Soak a handful of dried red peppers in a cup or two of your favorite oil for several days. Sieve the oil and use it. -- Phyllis Eve Bregman CSRI, Univ. of Toronto {decvax,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,allegra,utzoo}!utcsri!phyllis CSNET: phyllis@toronto
djw@qumix.UUCP (David Wright) (04/09/85)
> Heating up Szechwan food: > > If the hot peppers just aren't cutting it, try adding hot pepper oil when > you add the other sauce ingredients such as soy sauce. Start with a > teaspoon for a four serving recipe and go from there. > > Betsy Cvetic > ihnp4!drutx!eac If you want to make your food hotter, try cayenne pepper. A little goes a long ways.