‘I got almost emotional crossing the threshold. There’s this… smell’

I needed Sichuan pepper for a favourite Kylie Kwong recipe. But where to find it in white-bread, small-town Western Australia?

Choices, choices: condiments in an Asian grocery

“Bait Ice Drinks Bread Groceries ATM Milk”. The sign above an unremarkable shop in a nearby town is unambiguous, if nothing else. And great if you want mulies – pilchards – for landing the big one out on the bay. Or a $20 note. But on the face of it, not too promising for someone seeking out Sichuan pepper.

Yet someone had mentioned that this unlikely shop, one I’ve driven past a thousand times, stocks a good selection of Asian essentials. I was sceptical, of course; it’s a default position. But it seemed worth a try, because heaven help the person who tries the local supermarket for the aforementioned spice, at least in these parts. Or even good old-fashioned white pepper for that matter, which is often called for in Cantonese dishes.

I jumped out of the car and got almost emotional crossing the threshold. There’s this… smell. You see, I’ve spent the best part of the past 30 years living within a (decent) drop-kick of the parts of town where you’ll find Asian grocers – emporia that have 25 different fish sauces, a bewildering array of dried shrimp and entire rows devoted to variations on the theme of “chilli sauce”. Aladdin’s caves for the curious, the homesick, the travelled or just the mere hungry.

You know the kinds of places I’m talking about; they remind you of that trip to Ho Chi Minh City years ago. They’re matter-of-fact, always run by no-nonsense women who work every hour God gave them, operate on tiny retail markups and carry an extraordinary inventory. One-stop shops for your cookware and lemongrass, your shopping trolley and your tripe… the kind of places where you buy stuff just because it might come in handy one day. Like commercial-size bags of cassia bark. Or dried lotus root. I love these places. They are a significant part of my evolution. I feel completely at home in them, alive and bewildered, in a stimulating way.

Now, this little shop wasn’t quite like that. But it shared some DNA. And suddenly, I felt like another obstacle on the path to harmonious country living had dissolved. Hairdresser: check. Car service: check. Balachan and dried black fungus: check, check.

I browsed its aisles, revelled in the choice of Chinese rice wines, ummed and aahed about which dried rice noodles to buy, made a note of the frozen dumplings I’d get next time for make-believe yum cha at home. And I thrilled to the spice display, which offered a choice of red or green Sichuan pepper. In this white-bread region, the frisson of that discovery was almost palpable.

Sichuan pepper is an essential final seasoning, with salt and white pepper, in a favourite recipe from Kylie Kwong’s book Recipes and Stories: caramelised braised oxtail – gelatinous meat on the bone with saltiness, tang, sticky sugar and powerful fragrance – served with lemon and ribbons of cucumber.

Like a lot of sub-prime meat, oxtail is no longer a bargain, but then, perhaps it never should have been? I’d take it over fillet steak any day. But here it takes a few steps.

You simmer it first for 20 minutes (which gets rid of the impurities, and some of the fat), rinse thoroughly, then poach it with ginger, garlic, spring onion and shaoxing wine for three hours, before refrigerating the tail pieces for the same time at least. Finally, the pieces are deep-fried to a crisp, golden brown. Easy.

Meanwhile, make a paste of garlic, fresh ginger, white peppercorns, coriander root and salt, which you fry in peanut oil until fragrant before adding palm sugar and fish sauce; after a minute or so of stirring, add the oxtail pieces to your (now) pungent caramel, coat it thoroughly, then add a little chicken stock and lemon juice and simmer for five more minutes. What you’ll have should be powerful, sharp and very vibrant, which is where your jasmine rice and cucumber ribbons come into play, softening it out on the plate and the palate. Garnish with a pounded combo of salt, white peppercorns and the Sichuan pepper. It can be a sensation.

My latest attempt, however? Mediocre at best; the meat was tough and way, way too fatty. I may have a new Asian grocer, but that good local butcher? One day.

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