Mala Xiang Guo (Dry Spicy Stir-Fried Pot)
The same ingredients as malatang, stir-fried instead of simmered. Everything is blanched or fried dry first and then tossed over high heat for well under a minute, so the chilli oil and spices coat the food directly rather than sitting in a broth.
Ingredients
- Spiced oil
- neutral oil · half beef fat makes it much deeper6 tbsp
- dried chillies · halved, seeds shaken out15 g
- Sichuan peppercorns · added at the end1 tbsp
- doubanjiang · must be fried gently2 tbsp
- garlic · sliced6 cloves
- ginger · minced20 g
- leek · white part, on the bias1 stalk
- star anise2 pcs
- cassia bark · 3cm1 piece
- bay leaves2 pcs
- To fill it (about 800g total)
- beef · sliced thin; lamb or pork belly also work200 g
- prawns · peeled and patted dry150 g
- lotus root · sliced 2mm150 g
- potato · sliced 2mm150 g
- napa cabbage · mostly the ribs150 g
- bok choy100 g
- broccoli · in small florets100 g
- wood ear mushrooms · rehydrated40 g
- enoki mushrooms100 g
- fish cake · or meatballs100 g
- tofu skin · or fried tofu puffs80 g
- sweet potato noodles · boiled and drained80 g
- Seasoning
- soy sauce2 tbsp
- oyster sauce1 tbsp
- sugar · gives the heat an edge1 tsp
- Shaoxing wine1 tbsp
- sesame oil · off the heat, at the end1 tsp
- toasted sesame seeds1 tbsp
- coriander · optional2 tbsp
Steps
- ⏲ 10 min
Sort everything into three groups by cooking time. Slow: lotus root, potato, broccoli, cabbage ribs. Middle: fish cake, tofu skin, wood ear. Fast: bok choy, enoki, prawns, beef.
- ⏲ 15 min
Blanch in that order: lotus root and potato 3 minutes, broccoli and cabbage ribs 2, fish cake, tofu skin and wood ear 1, enoki and bok choy 30 seconds. Drain everything thoroughly.
- ⏲ 5 min
Boil the noodles, rinse cold, drain and toss with a teaspoon of oil, or they glue themselves together.
- ⏲ 10 min
Marinate the beef 5 minutes in the Shaoxing wine and a teaspoon of soy; pat the prawns dry. Spread the blanched food out to dry on the surface — any water left turns this into a braise.
- ⏲ 3 min
Fry the beef in 2 tbsp oil over high heat for a minute, just to colour it, and take it out. Give the prawns 30 seconds and take them out too.
- ⏲ 2 min
Add the rest of the oil to the same pan, drop to low heat, and fry the chillies, star anise, cassia and bay for 30 seconds, then the garlic, ginger and leek for a minute. Blackened chillies mean starting again.
- ⏲ 2 min
Add the doubanjiang and fry it 2 minutes over low heat, until the oil goes red and the smell turns toasty. Rushing this leaves only salt.
- ⏲ 3 min
Turn the heat to maximum and add the blanched food hardest-first, roughly 30 seconds apart. Adding it all at once drops the pan temperature and nothing fries.
- ⏲ 1 min
Pour the soy, oyster sauce and sugar around the rim of the pan so they hit hot metal and reduce on contact.
- ⏲ 1 min
Return the beef, prawns and noodles and toss for 30 seconds to bring it together.
- ⏲ 1 min
Take the pan off the heat and add the Sichuan peppercorns, folding them in with residual heat only. Over live flame the numbing goes and bitterness stays.
- ⏲ 1 min
Finish with sesame oil, sesame seeds and coriander, and serve at once — standing around, the vegetables weep and liquid pools in the bottom.
Tips & Variations
Variations
- The ingredient list is a suggestion. This is a dish you assemble by pointing at
a counter, so treat the above as an example. The one rule: go easy on things that release a lot of water (tomato, cucumber, bean sprouts) — that is the fastest way to turn a stir-fry into a stew.
- Vegetarian works unchanged: drop the beef and prawns, add more tofu, mushrooms
and tofu puffs, and replace the oyster sauce with soy and a little sugar.
- Relative to malatang: same ingredients, same spices, and the only difference is
the broth (malatang has one, this does not). By the same logic, leftover red broth base from huoguo can stand in for the doubanjiang stage.
- Heat and numbing scale separately — dried chilli for one, Sichuan peppercorn
for the other. A tablespoon of peppercorns is definitely numbing; start at a teaspoon if it is new to you.
Tips
- Blanching and drying is half the dish. Wet ingredients drop the pan
temperature, the oil never coats them, and liquid collects. Five minutes spread out in a colander makes a visible difference.
- Low heat for the bean paste, high heat for everything else. Swinging the heat
twice within one dish is correct here (heat control).
- Peppercorns go in off the heat. Most whole spices need time in hot oil;
Sichuan peppercorn is the exception (blooming spices).
- Pour the sauces down the side of the pan. Straight onto the food they cool and
soak in; against hot metal they reduce on contact and gain aroma (browning and Maillard).
- Keep the teaspoon of sugar. It is not there to sweeten but to give the salt and
the chilli an edge (balancing flavour).
- Big pan, or two batches. 800g at once in a domestic pan is a pot, not a wok.
Frying in two goes and combining at the end beats crowding it.
- Leftovers are better repurposed than reheated: the vegetables have already
softened, so fry them with rice the next day rather than expecting the original texture.
The basics behind this dish
- Browning and the Maillard ReactionMeat fails to brown for one of three reasons: it is wet, the pan is cool, or you put too much in at once. Plus how the brown film stuck to the pan becomes your sauce.
- Cooking Meat: Temperature, Resting, and Cutting Against the GrainDoneness is a core temperature, not a number of minutes. What resting actually does, how to handle a thick cut, and why the direction you slice changes the texture.
- Knife Skills: Grip, Cuts, and Why Size MattersHow you hold the knife matters more than how fast you cut. The pinch grip, the claw hand, and why uniform size is a cooking decision rather than a cosmetic one.
More of the same kind
More from this country
Sign in to edit.
edits: 0 ·Edit history
https://cookiki.com/en/r/mala-xiang-guo · cookiki · User contributions are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.