Sichuan Food

The Sichuanese are proud of their cuisine, known as one of the Four Great Traditions of Chinese cuisine, which now is famous all over the world. Sichuan cuisine is of "one dish, one shape, hundreds of dishes, hundreds of tastes", as the saying goes, to describe its acclaimed diversity. The most prominent traits of Sichuanese cuisine are described by four words: spicy, hot, fresh and fragrant.[19] Two famous Sichuan chefs are Chen Kenmin and his son Chen Kenichi, who was Iron Chef Chinese on the television series "Iron Chef".

Szechuan cuisine, Szechwan cuisine, or Sichuan cuisine is a style of Chinese cuisine originating in Sichuan Province of southwestern China famed for bold flavors, particularly the pungency and spiciness resulting from liberal use of garlic and chili peppers, as well as the unique flavour of the Sichuan peppercorn. Peanuts are also a prominent ingredient in Szechuan cooking. Although the region is now romanized as Sichuan, the cuisine is still sometimes spelled 'Szechuan' or 'Szechwan' in the West. There are many local variations of Sichuan cuisine within Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality, which was politically part of Sichuan until 1997. The four best known regional sub-styles are Chongqing style, Chengdu style, Zigong style, and Buddhist vegetarian style.
 
Preparations
Szechuan cuisine often contains food preserved through pickling, salting, drying and smoking, and is generally spicy. The Sichuan peppercorn is commonly used; it is an indigenous plant producing peppercorns which has an intensively fragrant, citrus-like flavour and produces a "tingly-numbing" sensation in the mouth. Also common are garlic, chili, ginger, star anise and other spicy herbs, plants and spices. Broad bean chili paste is also a staple seasoning in Sichuan cuisine. The region's cuisine has also been the originator of several prominent seasoning mixes widely used in Chinese cuisine as a whole today, including yuxiang, mala, and guaiwei.

Common preparation techniques in Szechuan cuisine include stir frying, steaming and braising, but a complete list would include more than 20 distinct techniques. Beef is somewhat more common in Szechuan cuisine than it is in other Chinese cuisines, perhaps due to the prevalence of oxen in the region.  Stir-fried beef is often cooked until chewy, while steamed beef is sometimes coated with rice flour to produce a very rich gravy.

Representative Dishes
Some well-known Szechuan dishes include Kung Pao chicken and Twice Cooked Pork. Although many dishes live up to their spicy reputation, often ignored are the large percentage of recipes that use little or no hot spices at all, including dishes such as Tea Smoked Duck.

Tea smoked duck
Twice cooked pork
Mapo dofu
Sichuan hotpot
Fuqi Feipian
Spicy deep-fried chicken
Shuizhu, or literally "Water cooked", dishes
Dan dan noodles
Bon bon chicken