🍽️ Zigong Cold Spicy Beef

Dry spicy beef, perfect with drinks.

Zigong Cold Spicy Beef is a flagship snack of Zigong's salt-bang cuisine in Sichuan, part of the city's cold-eat series. Beef from the hind leg is cut into long strips along the grain, then slow-stir-fried with dried chili, Sichuan pepper and star anise until dehydrated, and served cool. The result is dry, chewy and fragrant, numbing, spicy with a returning sweetness, ideal with drinks or tea. Cutting with the grain and patient low-heat frying are the craft; the oil coats but never weighs it down. Zigong families keep a jar at home for snacks and bring it on trips; diners order it at old salt-bang restaurants. It distills the salt-city's spicy obsession into a keepable, grab-and-eat nibble.