Ten years ago I started laying the groundwork for the blog that was the genesis of The Mala Market and our recipe site. Ten years is a long time in blog time, and as we approached the 10th anniversary we could see there was a clear and urgent need for a refresh. So Kathy and I have spent the past few months laboring over a total redesign of the blog. Even though the recipes are basically the same, we knew it could be a much better organized and useful site for those looking to cook Sichuan recipes or use our regional Chinese ingredients.

Recipes are now organized first and foremost by ingredient/product so that you will have a stream of ideas and recipes for using the products you purchase from us (or a Chinese supermarket). You can still search recipes the usual way as well, by protein type or cooking method. And we've also added a section for our Deep Dives into Sichuan specialties like making chili oil or hotpot. 

But we think the Pantry How-To may just be your Go-To, whether you're trying to get your first foothold in regional Chinese cuisines and ingredients or attempting to expand your cooking repertoire based on what's in your pantry. There you will find a short history of each ingredient as well as cooking and storage tips and, of course, applicable recipes. If you have a question about one of our products, check here first.

Pleeeeease let us know if it's as useful as we hope it is. And do report any odd formatting or broken links that we missed in the overhaul. We will continue to tweak it, perfect it and add to it, hoping it survives and thrives for yet another decade.

Thank you for reading and cooking from it over the years and providing the positive feedback that keeps us going. While the blog is, we admit, also a marketing vehicle for our shop, it would certainly be a whole lot easier to spend our meager marketing budget on ads. But this whole enterprise started as a blog, and the journalist in me would much rather invest in bringing a group of talented writers together—four mother-daughter teams and counting!—to inform and inspire and help you make your home cooking measure up to eating in China.