Xiami Baicai

Nothing evokes memories as sharply and as immediately as odours and tastes. In the middle of Sichuan, at the Chen Ma Po Doufu restaurant in Chengdu, I enjoyed a dish familiar to me from childhood. The fragrance and taste of this spicy dish is very much like a comforting meal my mother used to make for me. She stir-fried common Chinese cabbage, the most common and cheapest Chinese vegetable, and enlivened the taste with dried shrimp. Like many peasant dishes, it is both nutritious and sus