Jiaoyan Zhenzi

the salt-and-pepper roasted hazelnuts of Northeast China: the native zhenzi wok-roasted with Sichuan pepper and salt, cracked by the handful at the winter fireside and the New Year table

Origin: China

From the journey of Hazelnut.

In the cold forests of Northeast China grows the native Asian hazel, Corylus heterophylla, and its nut, the zhenzi, is one of the 'four famous nuts' of the Chinese table, ranked with the chestnut, the walnut, and the ginkgo. Smaller and thicker-shelled than the European hazelnut, the zhenzi is above all a snack nut, gathered wild and now cultivated across the northeastern provinces of Jilin, Liaoning, and Heilongjiang, and it belongs to the great Chinese tradition of the roasted, spiced nut and seed eaten by the handful as chatian, the little things nibbled with tea, with drink, and through the long idle hours of the winter and the New Year holiday. The simplest and best preparation is jiaoyan, 'pepper-salt': the nuts are roasted, in a wok or over embers, with coarse salt and the numbing, citrus-scented Sichuan pepper toasted and ground, so that each cracked kernel carries a savoury, faintly tingling seasoning that draws out the sweetness of the nut. Set out in a bowl at the New Year, when the whole family gathers and the table is never empty, the roasted zhenzi is the everyday hazelnut of East Asia, a small, companionable pleasure of the cold months.

Ingredients

Nuts

  • 400 g hazelnuts, in the shell or shelled with skins on

Seasoning

  • 2 tbsp coarse sea salt
  • 1 tbsp Sichuan peppercorns
  • 1 tsp caster sugar

Method

  1. Toast the Sichuan peppercorns in a dry wok or frying pan over a low heat for 1 to 2 minutes, until fragrant, then grind them to a coarse powder in a mortar and sift out the gritty husks. Mix the ground pepper with the salt and sugar.
  2. Put the hazelnuts in a large dry wok with the coarse salt (using extra salt as a roasting bed if you like) and set over a medium heat. Roast, stirring and tossing constantly, for 12 to 15 minutes, until the shells or skins darken and the nuts smell deeply toasted.
  3. In the last 2 minutes of roasting, sprinkle over the pepper-salt-sugar mixture and toss well so it clings to the hot nuts.
  4. Tip the nuts out to cool (shaking off excess salt if you used a salt bed). Serve in a bowl, to be cracked and eaten by the handful with tea.

Notes

In-the-shell hazelnuts, roasted in a salt bed, are the most traditional and the most fun to eat, but shelled skin-on nuts, tossed directly with the seasoning, give a stronger flavour and are easier to serve. The same pepper-salt seasoning is used across China for roasted broad beans, pumpkin seeds, and peanuts; a little five-spice powder or dried chilli can be added for variety. Native Chinese zhenzi are small; European hazelnuts stand in perfectly.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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