Douchi

Bitter on salty, and the beans stop the melon tasting purely medicinal.

Chopped together and fried in the first thirty seconds. It is one aromatic.

Sharp volatile heat against a flat, salty base. Neither works alone here.

Steamed together: beans salt the liquor, liquor rehydrates the beans.

Two soy ferments, one salty and one funky. Sichuan uses both on purpose.

Fat suspends the salt and carries it into every corner of the wok.

Sweet pepper is the standard foil; without it the plate is only savoury.

Rice wine dissolves the salt crust and adds back the boozy note ageing lost.

Fermented beans against a mild allium; the savour comes from the bean, the crunch from the scape.

Fermented beans against a mild allium stalk, savoury depth from one side only.

Cantonese: fermented salt clings to shell char and turns it meaty.

Fermented funk plus dried funk. Salty, black, and utterly unsubtle.

Steamed dim sum ribs: the beans season through the meat as the fat renders.

Cantonese: fermented salt against shellfish salt. Two ferments, one shell.

Two fermented beans, both roasted, both bitter. The overlap is not a stretch.

Shared pyrazines and a shared liquorice-dark finish. Both taste of long heat.