Spicy (Sichuan) vegetarian stock - From Old Cook Books

Among the old cook books we collected, there’s a book of mostly Sichuan vegetarian dishes from temples and day to day eating, within which, there’s a Sichuan style vegetarian stock recipe that I found interesting and may be helpful for vegetarians out there trying to make more Sichuan flavor.

As this is in our “Old books translation” project, below is the picture of the recipe itself so that any Chinese readers can have a look. This belongs to the tested category of recipes, the process is translated according to the modern cooking context and my testing with the recipe so that it’s actionable.

And here’re the major alterations from the original recipe: a. the Sichuan peppercorn in the English version is halved and rounded up from 15g to 7g as the original amount it calls for gives a bitter aftertaste to the soup; b. the white peppercorn powder is swapped to crushed white pepper; c. dried shiitake is changed to 30g instead of 100g as 100g of dried would be very dominant in the stock, I suspect they mean 100g in weight after it’s reconstituted.

Original recipe:

Translation/Recipe:

Ingredient:

• Soy bean sprout (黄豆芽), 500g
• Scallion (葱), 100g
• Old ginger (老姜), 100g (ginger that’s been sitting for a bit and has less moisture in it)
• Yacai or Zhaicai (芽菜/榨菜), 100g (Sichuan fermented mustard green or preserved mustard, if you can find a whole head of zhacai preserved mustard stem it’d be better than using the package stuff)
• Dried shiitake mushroom (干香菇), 30g
• Sichuan peppercorn (花椒), 7g
• White peppercorn (白胡椒), 10g

Process

Soak the mushroom in 1L of cool water for 8 hours or overnight, squeeze dry, wash off any debris, and reserve the soaking liquid.

Clean out the shells that may be sticked to the soy bean sprouts. Smash the ginger and gently tie the scallion into a knot.

If using whole stalks of yacai fermented mustard green or zhacai preserved mustard green stem, wash off the surface salt and/or sand, cut it into 1cm-ish or longer julienne.

If using package yacai or zhacai, give it a rinse with water to get rid off the excessive salinity.

Coarsely crush the white peppercorns into small bits, similar to the size of crushed black pepper.

Into a pot, add in the 1L mushroom soaking liquid, 3L of water, together with all the ingredients, bring it to a boil, turn the heat to low, cover, and let it cook for 90 minutes.

Strain and use it in spicy dishes.

Note

Subbing Sichuan preserved mustard / fermented mustard: Tianjin Preserved Vegetables (天津冬菜) is commonly used in (some northern style) stock making and would hit a similar note when making stock. It seems quite available in the west, so if you have trouble finding the Sichuan ones, just use the Tianjin preserved vegetable. Because it’s extremely salty, remember to give it a half hour soak with water, then squeeze the water out before adding in.

This is a relative spicy soup, in which the spiciness comes from ginger and white pepper. It would be a good stock to use in spicy vegetarian dishes like mapo tofu or Chongqing Xiaomian (Chongqing mala noodles). Or even just a soup base for a plain bowl of noodle soup.

The recipe makes a big batch of stock, you can cut it in half to give it a try and see if you like it at first. After all, all that vegetable amount feels quite ridiculous when I put them all into the pot.

The soup has a very nice color and almost feels like a “tea” that’s flavored with vegetables since there’s no oil in it.