Fuchsia Dunlop

I have both Fuchsia’s Hunan and Sichuan books, and use them regularly. For anyone in the UK, the following places do a good online order and delivery service for oriental ingredients (several of which are in Fuchsia’s books):

Wai Yee Hong http://www.waiyeehong.com/
Wing Yip http://www.wingyipstore.co.uk/

We have used Fuchsia’s Szechuan and Hunam books with delicious success. In the New York metropolitan area many of the ingredients,including meat, fish, groceries and vegetables can be found at the Hong Kong Supermarket in Flushing on Main Street near 37th Avenue-one hour free parking on weekends!!

One of the biggest difficulties in the US is finding the “facing heaven” peppers. I’ve only seen them in London — none of the markets in San Francisco that I’ve visited have them, they have the “five finger” peppers.

James, have you tried looking for ‘birds eye (birdseye) chillies’ or tsi tian tsiew (cantonese pronunciation)? You might have better luck, as they are relatively easy to find in the UK.

If you live near cardiff theres a shop called Cardiff Korean and Japanese Foods. Its at 147 Woodville road in the Cathays area. It sells facing heaven chillies and really good quality sichuan peppercorns. I was very excited when I stumbled on this place as I had no luck online trying to source the facing heaven chillies. This little place is a delight.

Amy, yes, I’ve tried those… Different flavor. Birds eye (Thai) peppers would be way too hot… Not that I don’t mind heat, but sometimes I seek authentic…

Guess it means I’ll have to go to London again real soon now… The shopping list is these peppers, some nice tea, a visit to Rococo Chocolate (they make the best truffles I’ve ever had), and a visit to Brick Lane for some curry.

Who said you can’t get good food in the UK?

James- facing heaven peppers, at least in their dried form are available in New York.

After reading about the elusive Camellia Oil that Fucshia mentions in her Hunan cookbook I did a search of all the local Asian grocers in Melbourne, Australia. After a long search I eventually found it in Mihn Phat Asian Supermarket in Nicholson St, Richmond. I have used it in several dishes and made chilli oil with it. Light jade in colour and has a clean light slightly nutty flavour. Has a hard to describe non oily feel and taste about it which I have not seen in other cooking oils before. I was quite impressed with it in my stir fries and will be using it in the future as long as I can find it. Price wise it was very cheap for such a rare product over here.

After trawling the myriad of Chinese supermarkets in Manchester (UK) I think I can say that W H Lung on Upper Brook St is the best for Sichuan ingredients. They have proper Pixian chilli bean sauce, sweet bean sauce, and a good variety of Sichuanese preserved vegetables. Woo Sang in Chinatown is the only place I’ve seen dried chillies that were clearly labelled as being from Sichuan though.

Today i finally found Ya Cai at the Hong Kong Supermarket in East Brunswick New Jersey; the packages were the exact same ,”SUIMIYACAI” made in Yibin, as earlier given to me by the Little Pepper Restaurant in Flushing. Right next to it were packages of Pickled Chilis.

facing heaven chillies back in stock online!
hooray!
http://shop.waiyeehong.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1980

Anyone looking for chinese ingredients in Montreal should easily find what they need at either of these two places:

Marche Orientale at the corner of St-Laurent and St-Denis

Marche Hawaii, in Ville St-Laurent, on boulevard Marcel-Laurin just above poirier

both of these places cover pretty much anything you need to cook anything from Fuchsia’s books

Hi there – any further updates from Fuchsia or anyone else?

thanks

In the UK, Manchester’s WH Lung stocks Sichuanese chillies that look similar to facing heaven chillies, although not labelled as such. They also have several Pixian fermented broad bean sauces and yang jiang preserved black beans with ginger.

Presumably Gabriel was referring to Marche Oriental located at the corner of St-Denis on Jean Talon in Montreal. (St-Laurent and St-Denis are parallel to one another.)

I have come across very good facing heaven chillies and szechuan pepper: http://www.thespicery.com/