6 minutes ago, Hassouni said:
@liuzhou, you're correct, the green ones are definitely more rare outside China, at least in the US. I only started seeing them recently and not frequently, which is a shame because I really like them!
From what I remember eating around Chengdu a year and a half ago, mapodoufu and similar dishes (such as shuizhu niurou, "water-boiled" beef) used the red Sichuan pepper, whereas primarily seafood used green, but I'm sure it's more subtle than that.
I'd need to think about which variety is used in which dishes. The last time I remember having green ones in a restaurant was about a month ago and we were eating frog. The peppercorns were fresh, still on the stalk and utterly wonderful. Frog does often appear in the seafood section of menus for some reason.
The restaurant I was in only does frog There is no menu. Only one dish - frog.
I've certainly had seafood with red ones though, but remember Sichuan is landlocked, so seafood is not a traditional or big part of their cuisine.
