Mala Xiang Guo with Octopus, Shiitake and Greens

Name: Mala Xiang Guo with Octopus, Shiitake and Greens
Prep time: 20 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 2
Ingredients: 8 piece Dried red chilli, cut in half, seeds shaken out; 4 g Sichuan peppercorn, whole; 30 g Lee Kum Kee Chiu Chow chilli oil, mostly solids, from the bottom of the jar; 3 g Sugar; 40 ml Neutral oil; 1 g Sichuan peppercorn, toasted, then ground; 20 g Lao Gan Ma peanuts in chilli oil; 5 g Sesame seeds, toasted; 6 piece Dried shiitake; 250 ml Water, cold, to soak the shiitake; 200 g Tenderstem broccoli, trimmed; 2 piece Bok choy, cut in half lengthways, stems and leaves apart; 15 g Ginger, sliced thin; 4 clove Garlic, sliced thin; 200 g Borrelli octopus in oil, 1 jar, drained; Octopus jar jelly, all of it, from the bottom of the jar; 160 g Rice; 220 ml Water, to cook the rice

Sichuan dry-pot on Chiu Chow chilli oil, glazed with the octopus jar jelly, over rice

A mala dry-pot (麻辣香锅) for two. Dried chilli and Sichuan pepper are fried in oil. Chiu Chow chilli-garlic oil gives the red base. Shiitake, tenderstem broccoli and bok choy are fried hard, then glazed with the gelatin from a jar of cooked octopus. The octopus gets a short sear at the end. Lao Gan Ma goes in off the heat for crunch. There is no broth. Serve over rice.

TechniqueBlooming TextureCrisp CourseMain CuisineSichuan TechniqueBlanching CuisineChinese TechniqueSearing TechniqueStir-frying

Tenderstem broccoli, pale bok choy, dark shiitake and orange chilli-coated octopus in a steel pan, covered in red chilli crisp and sesame seeds

For

2 servings

Why the first revision

First version. Cooked on 27 October 2026. Built on Chiu Chow chilli oil and Lao Gan Ma because no doubanjiang was in the pantry. The octopus jar jelly was added as a glaze during the cook.

Tap a step to cross it out0 / 15 done

Mise en place

7 steps

Put the dried shiitake in the cold water. Hold them under the water with a small plate. Soak for 30 minutes or more.
6 piece Dried shiitake 250 ml Water
Time 30 min
Wash the rice until the water is clear. Cook it with the water, with a lid, on the lowest heat for 12 minutes. Then rest it off the heat, with the lid on, for 10 minutes.
160 g Rice 220 ml Water
Time 22 min
Drain the octopus in a sieve over a bowl. Keep 15 ml of the jar oil. Scrape the jelly from the bottom of the jar into a small bowl.
200 g Borrelli octopus in oil Octopus jar jelly
Dry the octopus fully with paper towel. Cut large pieces to the size of one bite.
200 g Borrelli octopus in oil
Squeeze the shiitake over the soak bowl. Keep 15 ml of the soak liquid. Remove the stems and cut each cap into quarters.
6 piece Dried shiitake
Put the chillies, whole peppercorns, ginger, garlic, Chiu Chow oil and sugar next to the pan. Put the ground peppercorn, Lao Gan Ma and sesame in a separate group for the finish.
8 piece Dried Thai chilli 4 g Sichuan peppercorn 30 g Lee Kum Kee Chiu Chow chilli oil 3 g Sugar 15 g Ginger 4 clove Garlic
Boil the tenderstem broccoli for 60 seconds. Put it into cold water at once. Dry it fully.
Wet broccoli steams in the pan. It does not fry.
200 g Tenderstem broccoli
Time 1 min
Work Blanching

Cook

7 steps

Put the neutral oil and the 15 ml octopus jar oil in a cold pan. Add the chillies and whole peppercorns. Heat the oil to 150 °C. Fry until the chillies are dark burgundy, not black.
At 130 °C the chillies take too long. Above 170 °C they go black in seconds.
8 piece Dried Thai chilli 4 g Sichuan peppercorn 40 ml Sunflower oil
Time 1 min–2 min
Temp 150 °C
Work Blooming
Add the ginger and garlic. Fry for 30 seconds. Do not let them become brown.
15 g Ginger 4 clove Garlic
Lower the oil to 130 °C. Add the Chiu Chow oil and stir for 45 seconds, until the oil is red and smells toasted.
The garlic in this jar is already fried. It burns fast.
30 g Lee Kum Kee Chiu Chow chilli oil
Temp 130 °C
Set the heat to maximum. Fry the shiitake for 2 minutes, until the edges are brown.
6 piece Dried shiitake
Time 2 min
Work Stir-frying
Add the bok choy stems and the broccoli. Stir and toss for 90 seconds.
200 g Tenderstem broccoli 2 piece Bok choy
Work Stir-frying
Add the bok choy leaves, the jar jelly, 15 ml shiitake soak liquid and the sugar. Toss until the leaves are soft and the liquid is a glossy coat.
Stop while the glaze is glossy. A matte glaze is starting to burn on the pan.
3 g Sugar 2 piece Bok choy Octopus jar jelly
Work Reduction
Push the food to the side. Put the octopus on the hot, empty part of the pan. Do not move it for 30 seconds. Then toss everything for 15 seconds.
The octopus is already cooked. More heat only makes it firm.
200 g Borrelli octopus in oil
Work Searing

Serve

1 step

Take the pan off the heat. Fold in the Lao Gan Ma, ground peppercorn and sesame. Taste before you add salt. Serve over the rice.
1 g Sichuan peppercorn 20 g Lao Gan Ma peanuts in chilli oil 5 g Sesame seeds 160 g Rice

Notes

CAUTION · SUBSTITUTION Chiu Chow oil and Lao Gan Ma in place of doubanjiang

The dish was planned on Pixian doubanjiang. None was in the pantry. Lee Kum Kee Chiu Chow chilli oil became the fried base. Lao Gan Ma peanuts in chilli oil went in at the end for crunch. The dish lost the deep fermented bean taste. It gained garlic, brightness and crunch. The shiitake soak liquid and the MSG in Lao Gan Ma replaced part of the savoury depth. The neutral oil went down from 60 ml to 40 ml because both jars bring oil. The order changed: fresh ginger and garlic now go in before the Chiu Chow oil, because its fried garlic burns fast.

NOTE · OBSERVATION Bloom temperature

Medium-low on this hob is 130 °C. At 130 °C the chillies took too long to colour. At 150 °C they reached burgundy in about 1 minute.

Provenance

Made on 27 October 2026 from what was in the pantry: tenderstem broccoli, bok choy, dried shiitake, rice and a jar of Borrelli octopus.

The science

What is actually happening in the dish, and why the techniques work.

The octopus is already cooked

Octopus first gets tough as the muscle proteins contract. It gets soft again only after the collagen turns to gelatin in a long, slow cook. The jar has done that slow cook. More heat now only pushes water out and makes the muscle firm again. A dry surface and a short sear give browning on the outside and keep the inside soft. Water on the surface holds it at 100 °C, so it steams and does not brown.

30 s on a hot dry surface · surface patted dry

The jar jelly is gelatin

Octopus skin and connective tissue hold a lot of collagen. When the octopus cooked in the jar, the collagen became gelatin. It went into the packing liquid and set when it cooled. The lemon taste is citric acid and wine vinegar from the packing liquid. Gelatin melts at about body temperature, so it is liquid at once in the hot pan. As the water boils off, the gelatin becomes a sticky film. The film holds the chilli oil on the vegetables, so the oil does not collect in the pan. The jelly also carries salt, so taste before you add more.

melts near 35 °C · reduce until glossy

Cold soak for shiitake

Guanylate (5'-GMP) gives dried shiitake most of its savoury taste. The mushroom's own enzymes make it from RNA. A cold soak, then heat in the pan, lets this happen before other enzymes break the guanylate down. Guanylate with glutamate tastes much more savoury than either one alone. The glutamate here comes from the MSG in Lao Gan Ma. This gives depth without more salt.

cold water · 30 min or more

Chillies start in cold oil

Chillies and oil heat together. The oil takes up capsaicin and the chilli flavour before the chilli sugars burn. Chillies put into smoking oil get bitter, black skins in seconds. Burgundy is the target colour: the roasted taste is there and nothing is burnt.

cold oil → 150 °C · stop at burgundy · black above 170 °C

Ground peppercorn goes in off the heat

Sanshools cause the tingle and numbness of Sichuan pepper. Heat breaks them down. The whole peppercorns fried in the oil give aroma. The ground pepper at the end gives the tingle.