This one worked backwards. I was looking through Herbivoracious and thought that the sichuan dry-fried green beans and tofu looked delicious, but that I’d never be able to find the key ingredient, the sichuan preserved vegetable. I put the recipe on the back burner of my mind until I could visit a chinese supermarket. Then several weeks later when I was emptying the cupboard for my stash of unused MoFo ingredients, I found this little packet at the back. I must have bought it the last time Klair and I visited a chinese supermarket together and that must have been easily 4 years ago!
I halved the sugar in this recipe for our tastes but kept everything else as it was. My husband said the house smelt like a chinese restaurant when he came in, and he was right. It was amazing. I don’t think I would have been able to identify the sichuan vegetable but I definitely knew there was something different there which gave it a different flavour and made it taste authentic. I served it with some simple plain cooked rice which worked well with the salty umami flavours in the dish.
Have you used sichuan preserved vegetable? What did you do with it?
Cooking the Vegan Books 
You ave the most interesting pantry! Never even heard of sichuan.
how interesting! sounds delish!
Haha, I love that you found something you were planning on buying at the back of the cupboard. This happens to me all the time but usually moments after buying whatever it is again!