liuzhou

Well, let's start with getting her name correct. It Is Fuchsia Dunlop. Yes , some of her books and recipes are very much aimed at beginners / less experienced people. Probably the most accessible is Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking. Then move more widely. Although her Sichuan book is a classic, my favourite is Land of Rice and Fish, but then I've been eating and cooking Chinese food in China for a very long time.

I mostly just eat it as it comes, as a snack, but I have also ground it and added it to a batter for fish and chips and was very happy with that. My favourite crackers to eat with cheese or even chicken liver pâté also contain ground nori. I never make them though.

There is no simple rule. It depends on many factors. The specific wine, not just a grape or district; the vintage; how it has been made; how it has been stored etc. Legally protected descriptors, at least in Europe, are helpful, but not infallible. I would say you have to research each wine individually considering all the factors involved.

A fascinationg selecton of London restaurant menus from the late 19th century and (mostly) early 20th century. https://flashbak.com/a-collection-of-fascinating-20th-century-london-menus-451328/ Featuring, among more regular cuisines, this 1889 menu from what is believed to be the first vegetarian restaurant in England.

We all do to an extent, but we don't all start a series of threads looking for cookbooks. You have already said that Perhaps there is a reason for that. When you show us why they shouldn't do that and tell us what they should do instead, then write your own cookbook. You can't learn to cook from cookbooks alone! You got to get in there and get your hands dirty.

The best way to learn or improve cooking is to cook, not to charge around the internet looking for the 'perfect' cookbook. That doesn't exist. This applies to baking and all other sub-genres of cooking.

Alternatively, enter the name without diacritics in Google Translate and it will give you the version with diacritics. You may have to specify it is Vietnamese. I have multiple input 'keyboards' on my PC, but then I needed them in my work.

Fish and pork surimi are both certainly common in Asia, but that does not necessarily equate to 'popular'. It's cheap paste usually made from otherwise unusable scraps and often with illegal additives. Then sold under misleading names. These 'lobster balls' do not contain any lobster at all, for example. Nor do they taste anything like lobster. Fish surimi is known in Chinese as 鱼糜 (yú mí). The first character is 'fish' while the second can be translated as 'gruel'', but also 'rotten'. To make matters worse, 鱼糜 is also a near homophone of 玉米 (yù mǐ), meaning 'cØrn'! Say no more!

It is a classic Sichuan technique and I think for the reasons @Duvelgives. Same technique as used in making chili oil. The shock of the oil brings out the flavours, but then it cools down rapidly preventing scorching

Well, we don't post them all, but as for me 99% of mine just turn up in my Facebook or Twitter accounts. Why, I don't know. Maybe just odd friends!

Beef with fermented black beans and mushrooms. Beef, button mushrooms, fermented black beans, garlic, coriander leaf, scallions, chilli, Sichuan peppercorns, soy sauce, Shaoxing wine.

Sure. I'd guess most home cooks here don't use tallow, not so much for health reasons, but because it just isn't that easy to find. They probably use home rendered pig fat (lard) when they want animal fat. Or they just use vegetable oil. Round here that is nearly always peanut oil. I, too, use rice bran oil when I want vegetable oil for Asian cooking.

I'm waiting for the "What's the best 'what's the best cookbook list topic'⁈"

Just as you would cook brown rice.

Yes. ข้าวไรซ์เบอร์รี in Thai, it is from northern Thailand and is a cross-breed of Hom Mali (Jasmine Rice) and Purple Rice. It was developed by scientists in the early 2000s. Similar to brown rice in texture and flavour.

Most recipes, including Dunlop's use beef tallow, but nowhere near 30%.

Later yesterday, I visited the supermarket and decided to have a look at the prepacked bases. There were about 20 different brands, none of which are based in Sichuan or Chongqing. The people there don't need them! This one, from way up north in Hebei province beside Beijing, seems to be the most popular. The main ingredient is beef tallow at a huge 28.7%. They also contain a load of preservatives etc. They do describe it as for Sichuan style hot pot. Here is a short video of a factory making the stuff. It is in Chinese, but the beef fat is the first ingredient you see . If that doesn't put you off, little ever will!

Well, I did so and I'm not really surprised that only one gives a recipe for a hotpot base, but it's not a good one! As, I said, most hot pot are left to the restaurant's devices. My Chinese language Sichuan cook book (家常川菜 - jiā cháng chuān cài or Family Style Sichuan Food) doesn't even mention hot pot. I guess the Sichuanese are born with the recipe hard-wired into their DNA! I think probably your best bet is the recipe in Fuchsia Dunlop's The Food of Sichuan (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). It's on page 407 of my edition. She does tone it down a bit, but it's easy to tone back up! Unusually, I do rather like this video on YouTube, too.

Most hot pots are actually eaten in restaurants as a communal celebration. However, when made at home, typically at Spring Festival, most people I know make their own bases. That said, all the supermarkets carry pre-made mixes, so some people must be using them. The few pre-made bases I've tried have been rather over greasy (they are sold more as pastes than just spice mixes) and unpleasant tasting. I'll dig out some of my Chinese language cookbooks and give the basics later. Watch this space!

Snacking on these Gelao sausages. Tiny, spicy and salami-like. More info here.

These are fun. Most (around 440,000) of the Gelao ethnic minority (仡佬族 - gē lǎo zú) live in Guizhou Province to the north-west of here. There are also approximately 3,000 in Vietnam. They do have their own language, unrelated to Chinese, but very few (<1,000) still speak it today. They eat some of the spiciest food in China, including these tiny sausages. 7cm / 3¾" long, they come pre-cooked, so ready-to-eat. Ferociously spicy yet still almost salami-like in flavour. These are a favourite beer food!