Ma La Xiang Guo (Spicy Numbing Stir-fry Pot)

Ma la xiang guo (麻辣香锅) is definitely a “newer” dish. It doesn’t have hundreds of years of history, but I can tell you, this dish is a legend in the making. It’s so popular in China now that there are tons of restaurant chains like NaDu (拿渡) and ChuanChengYuan (川成元) thriving on just this one dish. Ma la xiang guo is very heavily spiced, but not just by chilies alone. There are tons of spices added, that until now were mostly a delicious delicious mystery to us. Living in Beijing, we couldn’t get enough of this dish––spicy food lovers will rejoice when they taste it! I recently made this dish (minus the fish balls) for a vegan friend, he said that this is the best dish he ever had at our house. To show you why we were so obsessed with it, let me shed some light on how it’s done in a Ma La Xiang Guo restaurant. A server hands you a menu after you are seated. You’ll notice that everything on the menu consists of raw ingredients, and each comes with a price. (Side note: I love Chinese menus. They have the thickness of a miniature novel with so many dishes to choose from, and every dish has a picture, name and price—so there’s no need to guess what you are ordering. Most of the time, I like to keep the menu even after ordering so I can marvel at the dishes that I did not order. Sorry, now back to our topic…) After examining all the delectable choices, you pick your choice of meats, tofus, seafood, and vegetables. There is really no right or wrong way to make your selections, so go ahead, be a picky eater and only select ingredients that you fancy. Eight to ten ingredients is perfect for four to six people; any more and you’ll be served up a mountain of food with nowhere to go other than the back of your fridge. The server then will ask you how spicy you like it, from mild, to medium, to hot. My advice is to go slow if this is your first time, and select the mild, which I think is the right amount of heat for optimal enjoyment. After a short wait, a large vessel of piping hot and delicious ma la xiang guo will appear at your table, along with rice for everyone. BTW, don’t forget to order plenty of water. You will need it. At mom-and-pop restaurants, fast-food chains, and food courts, you can select ingredients in a buffet-style line, and they are ordered by weight. After you make the selections, they weigh the vegetables separately, because protein costs more. This dish can definitely become expensive very fast. Last time, we ordered it in the Flushing Mall’s food court and were so disappointed—it tasted nothing like what we had in Beijing. So what do I do? Find a way to make it myself, of course! This recipe is mostly vegetables, but we added some fish balls, because let’s face it, who doesn’t like fish balls? Just remember…all the vegetables need to be blanched first. And if you want to add meats like chicken and/or beef, marinate them with a little oil, cornstarch, and soy sauce first and sear them separately so they are cooked before you add them in with the rest of the ingredients. Another a quick tip: a great time to make this dish is at the end of the week, when you find yourself with a little of this and some of that, and don’t know what to do with the ingredients. Simply combine all the ingredients to make a wonderful, vibrant new dish. For the vegetables:

• 3 celery stalks, thinly sliced
• 2 carrots, thinly sliced
• 2 potatoes, sliced
• 2 cups rehydrated wood-ear mushrooms(黑木耳), rinsed and drained
• 3 long pieces of rehydrated tofu bean threads (Fǔzhú 腐竹), drained
• 4-6 shiitake (rehydrated if using dried shiitake) mushrooms, washed and sliced
• a handful of sliced lotus root

First, bring a pot of water to a boil, and blanch all the vegetables (potatoes and carrots will take slightly more time), then transfer to an ice bath. Drain thoroughly and set aside. For the spice-infused oil:

• 1/3 cup oil
• 3 star anise
• 2 tablespoons Sichuan peppercorn
• 1 tablespoon fennel seeds
• 1 black cardamom (草果)
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 whole nutmeg
• 1 large dried orange peel
• 2 pieces dried ginger (沙姜) or 5 slices of fresh ginger
• 1/4 cup dried red chili peppers (keep them whole to avoid the dish being too hot)

Heat the oil in a wok over low heat, add all the spices, and let them infuse for 20 minutes, until all the spices start to brown. Turn off the heat, and use a slotted spoon to scoop out all of the spices, the oil remain in  the wok. For the rest of the dish:

• 2 tablespoon spicy red bean sauce
• 2 tablespoons hot pot soup base sauce（火锅底料）
• 6 slices ginger
• 8 cloves garlic, smashed
• 3 shallots, sliced
• 1 cup dried red chili peppers (keep them whole to avoid the dish being too hot)
• 3 scallions, chopped
• 1/4 head cabbage, sliced
• 1 7 oz. pack fish-balls (optional)
• 2 tablespoons shaoxing rice wine
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• Salt to taste
• a handful of chopped cilantro

Here’s a photo of the hot pot soup base sauce, and a link to buy it (a different brand) on Amazon if you can’t find it in your local Asian grocery store. To see what spicy red bean sauce looks like, check out our “Sauces, Vinegars, and Oils” section of our Ingredients Glossary, and scroll down to the entry for “Broad Bean Paste or Spicy Bean Paste.” Turn the heat back on low to medium, add in the hot bean sauce, hot pot soup base sauce, ginger, garlic, and shallots. Cook for a couple of minutes until the oil turns red, taking care not to burn the sauce. Now add in the dried chili peppers, scallions, and cabbage. Stir and mix everything for 2 minutes. Now stir in the fish balls and all the blanched vegetables, adding in the Shaoxing rice wine and sugar. Stir-fry and mix everything well for two minutes. Salt to taste. Transfer to a serving plate (or serve right from the wok), and sprinkle with chopped cilantro. Serve your Ma La Xiang Guo with plenty of steamed rice.