Chefs from Chengdu are getting creative in the kitchen of a new Beijing eatery, and proving once and for all that there's more to Sichuan cuisine than traditional eye-watering chili dishes, Li Yingxue reports.

"Spicy is not a term that adequately describes Sichuan cuisine. In fact, there are several types of spiciness, including hot, sour and numb," says Xie Xiangbing, executive chef at Xu's Creative Dishes.

"As well as these piquant tastes, there are also many other flavors used in Sichuan cuisine-from garlic and ginger, to sesame and sweetand-sour."

Familiar with the 24 flavors used in traditional Sichuan cookery, Xie is also developing new flavors for modern Sichuan cuisine, together with master chef Xu Fan, founder of Xu's Creative Dishes, in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

Xie began learning how to cook in 1995, and he became Xu's apprentice in 2001. "I remember Xu always had a cookery magazine stuffed in the back pocket of his trousers, which he would read when he had some spare time," Xie recalls.

Together with Xu, Xie created several new Sichuan dishes in the first few years after the turn of the millennium.

For the past six years, Xie has been working in a hotel in Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui autonomous region, as an executive chef. In March, he was invited by Xu to manage the kitchen at the new Beijing branch of Xu's Creative Dishes.

Xie brings with him to the capital his knowledge of Sichuan cuisine, together with his creations.

The one specialty dish at Xu's Creative Dishes is the steamed wild fish with special pepper sauce, which Xu created a couple of years ago.

The fish are shipped in from Heilongtan reservoir in Sichuan province. They inhabit the waters 20 meters below the lake's surface. Xie's family used to live there before moving dozens of kilometers away to make way for the construction of the reservoir in 1970.

According to Xie, this fish can only gain around 500 grams in weight per year, and the chefs select fish that weigh between 2.3 kilograms and 2.8 kilograms to serve at the restaurant.

"The meat of this fish is very tender, and its skin is glutinous. And the larger the fish, the less bones it contains," Xie says. "All the fish are wild, and we sometimes land 4-kilogram examples, which can be preordered by our customers."

At Xu's Creative Dishes, the wild fish dish can be prepared in three ways-one using pepper sauce, another using a homemade sauce and one cooked with shallots.

The fish are airfreighted from Chengdu into the capital live, where Xie feeds them in a large fish tank in the basement of the restaurant. Whatever cooking style diners choose, all the fish are first marinated in ginger, shallots and a homemade soy sauce before being steamed for 15 minutes.

"The shallot version is for diners who don't eat spicy food, while the homemade style features a special kind of Sichuan pickle that includes cowpea, ginger and chili," Xie says.

The pepper sauce is Xu's own creation, which is made using a mix of fresh green peppers, green chili and a special sauce. After a fish is steamed and the sauce is poured over, a carpet of chopped green chilis is added.

"The fresh green peppers have a sweeter aftertaste compared to dried peppers, yet the numb flavor is less strong than the dried ones," Xie says.

"The flavor of the pepper sauce does not belong to the 24 traditional flavors of Sichuan cuisine, and wild fish was not a common sight on dinner tables, until recently. The new flavor Xu created for the wild fish has made the dish popular now," the chef explains.

Pickle dishes often feature in classic Sichuan cuisine, and pickles are also used as an important seasoning in Sichuan food. According to Xie, different kinds of pickles are used for different purposes.

The type used as a seasoning is typically a blend of ginger, radish and pepper, which is marinated in a sealed jar for at least six months. Brown sugar is sometimes added to make the pickle more flavorful.

The other kind is made for instant consumption, and is nicknamed the "bath" pickle. "The instant bath pickle is where the ingredients are just marinated overnight before they're ready to eat," Xie says. "Any ingredient can be made into bath pickle, not just vegetables. Meat items, such as pig's ear and chicken's feet can also be marinated."

"In Sichuan, the ingredients used to make bath pickle depend on the season. For now, it's time for seasonal green vegetables from Sichuan," the 42-year-old chef says.

Braised crab with sesame and pickled vegetables is another creation and signature dish of the eatery.

The soup base is made with many seasonings, including pickled ginger and pepper, fresh ginger and shallot, glutinous rice, sugar and vinegar.

All the seasonings are fried in a mix of lard and canola oil before the vegetables and crab are added. The final step is to pour the fried sesame seeds onto the dish to cover the entire plate before serving.

The crab sucks up all the flavors of the soup, while the pickle dilutes the spiciness to make the dish mellow in the mouth.

Sichuan cuisine is not all about spicy food. The stewed minced chicken pudding in broth is one example of this-it looks like a bowl of tofu pudding, but it's actually made from chicken.

"The excellence of this dish lies in the fact that you hear 'chicken' in its name, but you don't see any in the bowl-yet you still taste chicken," Xie explains. "It's a dish that tests a chef's skills."

The key step to giving the chicken the texture of tofu is to smash the chicken breast with the back of a knife blade until all the muscles in the meat break down. Then the chicken is mashed and mixed with egg white and soy flour using specific proportions.

"If the mixture is too thick, it won't turn fluffy when it's boiled in the next step, and if the mixture is too thin, it won't become cloudy and will loosen," he says.

Last but not least, the final step is to pour the mixture into the water and keep the water bubbling below 100 C for an hour and a half until it becomes fluffy and floats up to the surface.

The final step is to fish out the tofu-shaped pieces of chicken and put them into a clear chicken broth. Xie adds a slice of black truffle to the top of the pudding to give it an added aroma.

Pan-fried glutinous rice cakes with jasmine and brown sugar is another must-try. The rice cake is so crispy on the outside and tender inside that it falls apart if you pick it up using chopsticks.

Xie is preparing to open another restaurant in Beijing that features Sichuan snacks. One of the signature dishes will be the golden noodles which are thinner than a hair and can be threaded through the eye of a needle.

"The 24 traditional flavors of Sichuan cuisine can be extended to many more, and as chefs, we need to keep exploring the possibilities," he says.