China South of the Clouds

A few days ago, the wonderful Taylor Holliday, founder of the online store the Mala Market, sent me a package of fresh spices that had just arrived from China. Taylor and her daughter, Fong Chong, source the ingredients they sell directly from farms and manufacturers in Sichuan, Yunnan, and other parts of western China, and the chiles and Sichuan peppercorns they import are almost certainly the freshest and most flavorful available in the U.S..

While the company is primarily focused on ingredients for making Sichuanese food, many of their spices are actually grown in Yunnan, and this year Taylor started stocking a number of ingredients that cooks will need to make dishes from Cooking South of the Clouds, including star anise, black cardamom, dried mushrooms, and rice noodles (as well as the chiles and Sichuan peppercorns that are common in both Sichuan and Yunnan). She’s also going to be offering some cards with recipes from the book, to introduce cooks to Yunnan food.

When I opened the packages that Taylor had sent me, I felt like I was standing in the middle of a spice market in Chengdu. The brick red dried xiaomila chiles smelled rich and pungent and smoky, and they were fresh enough that I could bend them. The Sichuan peppercorns were lemony and piney.

Cooking with these spices was also eye-opening. Just one dried chile in a wok full of beef and greens gave the entire dish a noticeable punch of heat, which was almost shocking because I can usually add a handful of dried chiles from my local Chinese supermarkets without getting much effect. I toasted and ground some Sichuan peppercorns and added them to some stir-fried chrysanthemum greens, and they permeated the entire dish. The black cardamom was more fragrant and subtle than the versions I had been buying (and were proper Chinese cao guo, sometimes called “red cardamom” to distinguish it from Indian black cardamom, which is similar but not precisely the same spice). The spices, I realized were even fresher than the ones I’d been able to source in my local markets in Yunnan. I would be able to cut back on my measurements a bit and stretch out my stash without losing any flavor.

I heartily recommend Mala Market’s spices for the dishes in Cooking South of the Clouds. Even if you have access to a good Chinese market, these spices will be better than anything you can find from other retailers. And Taylor is offering a discount for Yunnan cooks: use the code GEORGIASYUNNAN for 5% off your entire order.