Kung Pao Shrimp

Check out the recipe in the images here. Comes from a famous recipe collection that has a name similar to "Sports Illustrated".

Analysis:
- We used plain rice vinegar instead of black rice vinegar (I've had some trouble finding the black stuff in the store)
- replaced the schezuan (spelling?) peppercorns with white peppercorns. I think this was a mistake as it appears that the two are very different in taste. I felt that the white peppercorns dominated the final flavor.
- Replaced the oyster sauce with soy sauce since we didn't have any. Not sure how valid this is. The final product actually tasted under-salted, amazingly. Perhaps because we used reduced sodium soy sauce.

Sichuan Green Beans

Mike and I basically followed the Cooks Illustrated recipe for this that came from "The best international recipe" tome. Mike is Chinese and he seemed to heartily approve of the result, which is enough validation for me. Our one modification was to add water chestnuts -- not the typical canned variety, but fresh ones that Mike found at the Asian market in San Mateo. They are certainly far superior, having a lighter texture and richer, sweeter flavor than the canned ones.

Ingredients for sauce:
-- water
-- soy sauce
-- Chinese rice cooking wine
-- sugar
-- cornstarch
-- ground white pepper
-- red pepper flakes

Ingredients for the main pipeline:
-- 1 pound Chinese long beans
-- 1/4 pound ground pork
-- 3 garlic cloves
-- grated fresh ginger
-- green onions, sliced thin on the diagonal
-- toasted sesame oil