Kung Pao Cauliflower

I admire your valiant efforts to substitute for Szechuan peppercorns, and I am sure the resulting dishes were delicious. Please be aware, however, that there really is no good substitute for Szechuan peppercorns. The reason doesn’t have to do with flavor, but rather with sensation — Szechuan peppercorns numb your mouth as you eat them, not with pepper heat, but with a numbing sensation (on the touch, rather than taste, receptors). The result is difficult to describe… but very worth trying!

This was excellent! I've been wanting to buy Sichuan peppercorns but skipped buying a 1-lb bag the other day (only size available) so I after looking up potential substitutes subbed a 50-50 mix of black pepper and coriander with a generous helping of grated lemon peel. Also added a dash of Trader Joe's umami seasoning (which I've otherwise found few uses for) because my substitute apparently lacks the umami flavor in the original. A rather simple and really delicious dinner I'll cook again!

another source for szechuan/sichuan peppercorns is penzey's.

I’ve been studying and cooking Szechuan-style food for more than 20 years. There is no good substitute for Szechuan/Sichuan peppercorns (Hua Jiao). The best can be found on this wonderful site called The Mala Market. https://themalamarket.com/ Anthony Bourdain, on the infamous heat level of Sichuan’s food: "It’s the spicy, sensualist heartland of all the things I love about China… food that can burn you down to a charred, smoking little stump."

I had everything on hand except the cauliflower. I did, however, have a big bag of carrots. Cut in oval coins, look beautiful and taste wonderful as Kung Pao carrots!

I can recommend the Spice House for buying Sichuan peppercorns. The flatpacks ship for free and the quality is excellent. https://www.thespicehouse.com/products/sichuan-peppercorns PS: I'm not affiliated but I get a lot of my spices from them, as well as Oaktown Spice Spice Shop. Spice House ships in lined paper flatpacks and only uses paper for packaging. They keep the environmental footprint to a minimum.

Definitely double the sauce. Maybe even triple depending on the size of your cauliflower. And cut the florets small. They’ll better absorb the sauce. Szechuan peppercorns are a must. I also increased the garlic, ginger and green onions. All and all a delicious dish.

Black vinegar is another unique flavor, like Szechuan peppercorns, that doesn't have a good substitute. I suspect that you're best off simply omitting it, or adding a dash of a mild vinegar such as sherry to provide a bit of acidity. FWIW, black vinegar is inexpensive and easy to find if you have a Chinese grocery in the neighborhood.

Substitute sherry vinegar for black vinegar

The taste was excellent but as a novice cook, I did not dry the cauliflower after I washed it. The result was a lot of water coming out into the hot wok and the cauliflower becoming soft and mushy rather than crisp and brown. As a matter of fact, the cauliflower never browned. Lesson learned for next try and I’ll certainly try this one again.

This dish was excellent. You can absolutely substitute other vegetables in if you don’t have cauliflower. We used orange cauliflower and it turned out fantastic. The key to this dish is timing. I had all of the veggies cut and ready to go. They were done to perfection. A touch of finishing salt as I served the dish was a lovely finish to the dish.

Would add more ginger, garlic and green onions. Just my personal taste.

I have spent a lot of time in Laos. Around September fresh, green Mak khan = Zarthoxylum rhetsa = Sichuan pepper comes down the mountains to the Vientiane markets. It's amazing. Something like lemon pepper but the flavor bursts in your mouth and nose and your tongue goes numb. I freeze it. One year I gave some to a friend in California who said she would try it for ice cream. The dried Sichuan pepper we get here does not have the strong lemon peel taste of fresh Mak khan.

"Black vinegar is a broad umbrella term for a grain-based vinegar—sometimes aged for years and sometimes infused with flavor. Most black vinegars are aged for at least six months and up to several years, which gives them their signature color." https://www.bonappetit.com/story/black-vinegar

Be aware that Szechuan peppercorns are sometimes called by different names in Asian grocery stores. At my local H-Mart I found them called flower peppers, and I know there are other names for them as well. They looked right, I googled the name on the package, and I brought them home. Intense but wonderful little things.