Jau! Wine! As they call it. It’s actually a deadly spirit so vile that it should only be used for paint stripping and permanently disfiguring your enemies.
Strangely, the (mainland) Chinese drink it with abandon. There’s a chapter warning people against it but also suggesting a remedy for the hangover that will inevitably ensue if you as much as look at it, in my new book CHILLies! Sichuan Food Made Easy which I’m just putting the last touches on.
I thought at least I was only down to editing the last few lines, but no. Before I click publish I have to re-cook a dish for the sole reason of re-taking one photo. That dish is normally called 乾煸四季豆(gon bin sei gwai dau – dry-fried four seasons beans) but I have renamed it Bean There, Done That. Why? Because I can! After all, I wrote the damned thing, bought all the ingredients and burnt myself to a cinders during the writing process. Warning: Pickled mustard and fresh prawns will severely harm you before and during cooking.
But yes, while cooking this lovely dish, I inexplicably ran out of chillies in mid-cook! The photo thus ended up looking like this:
with one – one! measly chilli peeping out, embarrassed. A nadir of my cooking career.
I’ll keep you posted about the book. Very posted.
川菜 (chyun choy – Sichuan food)
豆 (dau – beans)
白酒 (baak jau – in the mainland a horrible, vile killer spirit. In Hong Kong, just normal white wine.)
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