Cheap thrills

I’ve developed an obsession.

The centre of my attention has a cheerful, pert and beguiling appearance that belies an incredibly firey personality. It’s a quality I find incredibly attractive - even irresistible.

My obsession causes me lots of pain, and provides even more pleasure.

Why is it that I just can’t get enough of chillis?

While many people run a mile at the mere hint of spicy food, I’m one of the world’s fortunates who gets a real buzz out of eating it.

Apparently chilli's active ingredient capsaicin triggers an endorphin release to counteract the burning pain, resulting in something akin to a runner’s high. I used to get a gym goer’s high in my younger, blobbier days. But now I’m older and fitter, I have to resort to more extreme, Scoville unit loaded measures in order to keep it legal.

Eating strongly spiced food always makes me feel incredibly happy and content, although that’s not always the case the next morning.

I’m naturally keen to try as many of the world’s spicy cuisines as I can lay my tongue on, and have eaten my way through all of the obvious suspects.

I had, however, never heard of the Hunan cuisine until I read Fuschia Dunlop’s brilliant, hilarious book “Shark’s fin and Sichuan pepper: a sweet and sour memoir of eating in China”. The Englishwoman lived in China for a decade, being the first Westener (and I think the first woman) to serve an apprenticeship at a Sichuanese cooking school.

She also wrote Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province, a book I've put to good use. Like Sichuan food, Hunan cuisine uses liberal amounts of chilli but in greater, less diluted quantities.

Even though I’d eaten Hunan food I’d cooked myself, I hadn’t found it in any Chinese restaurants. So it was with great excitement that I recently learned of a small place in Balmoral that has Hunan options on its menu.

My brother Brodie was keen to give it a go, so off we headed to Wu Han Restaurant one evening.

Nobody in the restaurant knew us, or even cared, giving us license to be as greedy as we pleased.  So we ordered four dishes and rice between the two of us. Here’s what we ate:

Sweet potato cakes – mild fritters made of diced, boiled kumera and batter. Even my kids would like these. We spiced things up by saucing them with one of the resident condiments.

“Greedy fish” – a whole deep fried snapper smothered in a mountain of chilli: preserved (red and green), fried whole dried ones, bits of chopped fresh ones. Yum, yum, YUM!  It was not nearly as hot as one would suppose but eating it still gave me a real buzz.

Beef soup – hot and tasty but extremely oily. Apparently Hunanese use a LOT of oil in their cooking; they should be the size of houses.

Hot, sour cabbage with, you guessed it, lots of dried chilli. Crisp, crunchy, hot, acetic, salty, tasty, utterly moreish.

It all tasted so good that we ate until we almost burst. All for $52 - $28 of which was for the snapper.

At the end of the meal I was so full I could hardly stand up. I suggested that Brodie carried me out to the car but, in true brotherly fashion, he declined.

An improbable lunch

I'll bet I'm the only person in New Zealand (and possibly the world) who ate shark and choko surprise for lunch today.

Once a week I employ the cleaning services of a wonderful Chinese woman, Lily. Like me, she loves food. From time to time she brings me yummy Chinese delicacies, such as a soupy fermented rice dessert (deliciously refreshing in summer). I respond in kind with Kiwi delicacies, such as mince. Lucky Lily.

She has a prolific choko vine and, like most choko vine owners, takes any opportunity to offload its multitudinous offspring onto unsuspecting victims. Be warned, accepting the offer of "some chokos" is likely to result in a fridge-filling gift along these lines:

















Chokos are, Lily informs me, wonderful when cooked Sichuan style with chicken. Here's her recipe (I'd imagine these quantities are sufficient for two people):


Lily's Sichuan style chicken and choko


1 dsp Sichuan peppercorns

1 tbsp Sichuan chilli broad bean paste

Chicken wings

Peeled, diced choko

Salt, to taste.


Heat oil. I'm not sure how much - maybe half a cup?

Add Sichuan peppercorns and fry a little. Then add bean paste and fry 1-2 minutes, until the oil is red.


Add chicken wings and stir-fry about 20 minutes, or until nearly done. Add a little water if it's drying out too much.

Add diced choko and cook until ready. Add salt to taste.

I got her to write the name of the broadbean paste in Chinese, which was a good idea because I'd never have found it in my local Chinese supermarket otherwise. Here's what to look for (the brand is Pixian):






















I couldn't face the thought of anything sandwichy or ricey for lunch today, so decided to give Lily's recipe a go. Not wanting to spend 20 minutes frying chicken wings, I bought a fillet of lemon fish (aka Shark) and used that instead (adding it after the choko).

I wasn't entirely sure how much of the hot, salty broadbean paste to use, so erred on the side of caution. Note to self: next time amp it up with more Sichuan peppercorns and broadbean paste.

I also added some soaked rice vermacelli 'cause I like my carbs! The resulting lunch was lovely and I'll cook it again.