I HAVE A CONFESSION to make: For nearly a decade, I kept contraband in my freezer. It was a stash of Sichuan peppercorn, the bright and earthy Asian spice that tingles and numbs the tongue. Harvested from prickly ash shrubs and trees in temperate parts of Asia, Sichuan peppercorns had been banned from the U.S. in 1968 out of fear they might spread citrus canker.
The spice is often combined with chilies for a sensation the Chinese call ma la—literally "numbing-hot." It was a food buzz that intrigued me because it was like no other. (Despite the name, the reddish-brown pods are not related to black pepper.) The zingy husks are used in China, where the spice is called hua jiao ("flower pepper"), while Japanese cuisine favors the pod's milder berries, known as sansho. In any form, that lemony tang is unmistakable.
I got my hands on some in 1996, and since I didn't know when I'd get more, I used the peppercorns judiciously—roasting them with salt, say, to make a zesty dip for fried chicken. My favorite way to deploy them was to pound and scatter them into mapo tofu, a Sichuan classic of velvety tofu and ground meat swimming in a silky sauce. When the U.S. lifted the ban on Sichuan peppercorns in 2005, I rejoiced. [Link]
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