🍽️ Northern Sichuan Jelly

Pea jelly with chili oil, north Sichuan summer.

Northern Sichuan Jelly is a classic summer snack of Nanchong in northern Sichuan. Pea batter is set into a translucent, silky jelly, cut into strips and dressed with chili oil, soy sauce, mashed garlic, scallion and Sichuan pepper powder, with more chili crisp for those who love heat. The jelly slides in cool slivers, and the dressing is numbing, spicy and fragrant, refreshing from start to finish. Nanchong's jelly stalls are often decades old, and a bowl of jelly with rice or a baked flatbread is the standard summer cooler in northern Sichuan. Compared with other spicy northern-Sichuan snacks, the jelly wins on its cool, appetite-opening quality; the hotter the day, the more you crave it. It is both a childhood memory for Nanchong locals and an unavoidable cool bowl for visitors on northern Sichuan summer streets.