Boldness be my friend

So when we were in London for New Year (I am become very American; I almost said New Year's), we went to Chinatown for supper (after The Artist, which we highly recommend). And I was too shy to ask for the proper menu, but fjm was not, on my behalf: so I ate fragrant & hot pig's intestines, and very nice they were too.

And today I came home from the market with chitterlings and determination, and now I am going downstairs to recreate the dish. Chillies and Szechuan pepper, largely. I'll let you know.

Oh lord, I am so damn macho

I, um. May have made my fragrant-and-hot pig's intestines more fragrant and, uh, hotter than the authentic Chinatown version. Whoops.

See, it was a new pack of dried chillies, and an old tin of Szechuan pepper: so obviously I needed to use a lot of the pepper because it will have lost some of its fragrance, and I had no idea how hot the chillies were but these big ones are usually disappointing, so...

Yeah. Anyway. Chillies are hot, pepper is still radiant. Dinner was lovely, thanks - but you might not have liked it. You'd need to be macho. (Honestly, I am such a boy about spicings. I embarrass myself. But some just do, y'know. Like it hot.)