That’s the way we like our Chinese food. Last night’s dinner featured Hot Hunan Shrimp and Dan Dan Noodles, and let me tell you, it was OUTSTANDING. My food photography sucks, I Photoshop’ed it so you’re not scared away. You really have to try these. This meal is the first entry on our Best of 2008 list.

Both of these recipes appeared on Food Wine’s 100 Tastes to Try in ‘07 feature in their January, 2007 issue. They posted the Dan Dan recipe but no Hot Hunan Shrimp! I did some googling and found a food blog that published this recipe, it is similar but not the same as the version in Food & Wine. One difference is the deep frying of the shrimp, mine were stir fried in a couple tablespoons of peanut oil.

The recipes were torn out and put in the ‘need to try’ file for two reasons:

1. We’ve been looking for a spicy noodle recipe and this looked like it might fit the bill!

2. Fuschia Dunlop is the author of the shrimp recipe. I own her cookbook Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking so when I saw her name on this one I knew I had to try it (it was a sneak peak from her most recent cookbook Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from the Hunan Province).

My love affair with Fuschia began in 2006. The food mission around here was Kung Pao Chicken. I started by checking out a stack of cookbooks at the library and making the targeted dish using different recipes until I found the keeper. Fuschia’s recipe was #4. We knew it was a hit as soon as it came out of the pan, it looked EXACTLY like the version Greg and I had stored in our New York take-out memory banks. My mouth waters just thinking about the perfection of ingredients in that recipe. It gets made at least once a month.

I made both the noodles and the shrimp exactly as written. The results were perfection in the areas of complex flavors and spicy heat. These recipes really hit the mark in tasting like traditional restaurant versions. I burned the peanuts the first time around so watch them closely! Don’t skip the cucumber, a wonderful texture and cool complement to the spiciness of the noodles. A bottle of Tsingtao was the perfect drink to wash down the heat.
食飯!

(sihk faahn, supposedly Bon Appetit in Cantonese, can one of my Chinese friends please correct this if needed, I would love to know the proper phrase, thank you!)