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The Bitter Winter account said efforts against the “xie jiao” groups were usually unsuccessful among the public.

What Mr. Zhang calls fortune pepper fish is his take on a Hunan dish, duo jiao yu, which is often made with just the fish head.

One of eight major regional cuisines in China, Sichuan cooking is the only one that fully embraces the odd, anesthetic qualities of the province’s famous red peppercorns, known as hua jiao.

In Mandarin, this quality is called jiao jing, sometimes translated from Mandarin as “chew power.”

Like many dishes here, the “dry-fried” chicken numbs the palate with tingling hua jiao, or Sichuan peppercorns.