Simple chinese cooking

I do not know who introduce all the types of cooing sauce to here, but really none of them is really acceptable to a Chinese people, at least none of my friends like them.
I am from a city called Chengdu, which is a capital city of Sichuan (here people translate it as Szechuan). The food from Sichuan is the most popular all over China. I have found a really good article, which could introduce our food and habit of eating.
'......Sichuan Cuisine


People immediately think of Sichuan food as being hot,
sour, sweet, and salty; using fish sauce; or having a
strange taste. Actually, these flavors were introduced
only in the last 100 years, and initially were popular
only in the lower strata of society. Hot pepper, an
important flavoring in Sichuan cuisine, was introduced
into China only 200 to 300 years ago.
During the period of the Three Kingdoms, the kingdom of
Shu was located in Sichuan. According to historical
research, the people in Shu liked sweet food. During the
Jin Dynasty, they preferred to eat pungent food;
however, pungent food at that time referred to food made
with ginger, mustard, chives, or onions. As recently as
200 years ago, there were no hot dishes in Sichuan
cuisine, and few were cooked with pungent and hot
flavorings. Originally, its flavorings were very mild,
unlike the popular dishes of today, such as pockmarked
lady’s bean curd and other hot dishes, Even today, some
Sichuan dishes, like velvet shark’s fin, braised bear’s
paw, crisp duck roasted with camphor and tea, sea
cucumber with pungent flavor, minced chicken with
hollyhock, boiled pork with mashed garlic, dry – fried
carp, and boiled Chinese cabbage have kept their
traditional flavors.
Sichuan has been known as the land of plenty since
ancient times. While it does not have seafood, it
produces abundant domestic animals, poultry, and
freshwater fish and crayfish. Sichuan cuisine is well
known for cooking fish. As a unique style of food,
Sichuan cuisine was already famous more than 800 years
ago during the Southern Song Dynasty when Sichuan
restaurants were opened in Lin’an, now called Hangzhou,
its capital city.
The prevailing Sichuan food consists of popular dishes
eaten by common people and characterized by pungent,
hot, strange, and salty flavors. Although Sichuan
cuisine has only a short history, it has affected and
even replaced more sumptuous dishes.
The hot pepper was introduced into China from South
America around the end of the 17th century. Once it came
to Sichuan, it became a favored food flavoring. Sichuan
has high humidity and many rainy or overcast days. Hot
pepper helps reduce internal dampness, so hot pepper was
used frequently in dishes, and hot dishes became the
norm in Sichuan cuisine. Sichuan food has become the
common food for most people in the area, especially
since the dishes go well with rice. In this respect,
Sichuan cuisine differs from Beijing cuisine, which was
mainly for officials and nobility; Huai – Yang cuisine,
which was mainly for rich, important traders; and
Jiangsu – Zhejiang cuisine, which was mainly for
literati. Typical, modern Sichuan dishes like twice –
cooked pork with chili sauce, shredded pork with chili
sauce and fish flavor, Crucian carp with thick broad –
bean sauce, and boiled mat slices are common dishes
eaten by every family.
Sichuan food is famous for its many flavors, and almost
every dish has its own unique taste. This is because
many flavorings and seasonings are produced in Sichuan
Province. These include soy sauce from Zhongba, cooking
vinegar from baoning, special vinegar from Sanhui,
fermented soy beans from Tongchuan, hot pickled mustard
tubers from Fuling, chili sauce from Chongqing, thick,
broad – bean sauce from Pixian, and well salt from
Zigong.
Sichuan pickles have an appealing smell, and are crisp,
tender, salty, sour, hot, and sweet. If pickled
elsewhere, even if made the same way using the same raw
materials, they still would taste different. This is
because the salt, which comes from wells in Zigong, has
a unique flavor. In other places, sea salt is often
used, which tastes slightly bitter. This example
demonstrates that the flavoring materials are very
important, apart from the skill of the cooks. In Sichuan
food, a single flavor is rarely used, compound flavors
are most common. By blending different seasonings,
skilled cooks can make dozens of different sauces each
with its own flavor, including creamy, salty, sweet and
sour, litchi, sour with chili, hot with chili, spicy and
hot, mashed garlic, distiller’s grain, fish sauce with
chili, ginger juice, and soy sauce. The same sauce may
be used differently in different dishes. For example,
the flavor of the hot with chile sauce for boiled sliced
pork is different from the flavor of the hot with chile
sauce for pockmarked lady’s bean curd.
When flavoring foods, sometimes two or more flavorings
are combined, and sometimes a hot fire is used to
concentrate the extract from the dish to increase the
intensity of the flavor, preserve the primary taste of
The dish, remove unpleasant flavours, and increase
pleasant flavours. Sichuan cuisine tends to use quick –
frying, quick stir – frying, dry – braising, and dry –
stewing. In quick – frying and quick stir – frying, the
food is fried over a hot fire and stirred quickly
without using another pan. For example, it takes about
one minute to stir – fry liver and kidney to keep it
tender, soft, delicious, and fresh.
The raw materials for dry – braising are mostly fibrous
foods like beef, radish, balsam, and kidney beans. These
foods are cut into slivers, heated in an iron pot and
stirred continuously. Flavorings are added when there is
only oil left and the water has disappeared. When the
dish is ready, it is dry, fragrant, crisp, and soft.
Dry – stewing is similar to stewing in the Beijing
cuisine, but the primary soup or extract in the dish
must be condensed over a low fire before the thick broad
– bean sauce or hot red pepper is added. No starch is
used. When the dish is ready, it looks faddish, oily,
and shiny and tastes delicious, crisp and soft. Typical
dishes are dry – stewed fish and dry – stewed bamboo
shoots.
Sichuan cuisine also has many delicious snacks and
desserts, such as Bangbang chicken, chicken with sesame
paste, lantern shadow beef, husband and wife’s pork lung
slices, steamed beef, noodles with chili sauce, and rice
dumplings stuffed with sesame paste....'


I am pleased to see Sichuan dishes have been put on many menus in Chinese restaurants, Chinese take-away and the Sichuan cooking sauce is on most of the supermarket’s shelf now. I am very curious about it, so I tried ‘take-away’ with Sichuan sauce first. What I had was Choir Sue, King Prawn and many vegetables buried in a very strange sauce (they call it Sichuan sauce), terrible, it ruins the reputation of Sichuan. I have been eating Sichuan cuisine for more than 20 years, never had this before! That is ok; I found a good excuse that they brought it up to British style. Whatever, I still want to adventure the cooking sauce from the supermarket. I bought ‘blue dragon’-Szechuan sauce with tomato in a sachet; from the name I know I will be disappointed. Because we rarely mix our spicy sauce with tomatoes. Yes, it has got a very strong Indian flavour to me. Finally, I threw all of them in the rubbish bin.