Oil-Splashed Bean Sprout Stems

According to the Kong Mansion household records, Emperor Qianlong visited Qufu at least six times during his Southern Inspection Tours (1748–1790). During one visit he ate sparingly; the anxious Yansheng Duke ordered chefs to produce something appetite-stimulating but light. A chef took green bean sprouts, stripped every tip and root by hand to yield uniform white stems, blanched them, then finished with hot Sichuan peppercorn oil. Qianlong praised it as 'a dish never tasted before.' The real prestige lay hidden: a single serving required stripping thousands of individual sprouts, labor only a wealthy household could staff.

Still barely cooked and faintly crisp, with a clean grassy sweetness — then half a second later a buzzing tingle from the peppercorn oil blooms across the tongue. The texture is strikingly uniform because every stem has been stripped to the same diameter.

Sichuan peppercorns contain sanshool compounds that activate vibration-sensitive mechanoreceptors on the tongue at around 50 Hz, producing the characteristic numbing tingle — a tactile sensation entirely distinct from the burning of capsaicin. The oil-splash technique (180–200°C) flash-cooks only the outermost cell layer of each stem, leaving the interior raw and crisp. Removing both sprout and root ensures uniform stem diameter, so every segment receives identical heat exposure.