Numbing and tingling
Sichuan pepper and its cousins: a buzz on the lips rather than a burn.
Numbing spices create a tingling, buzzing feeling on the lips and tongue. Sichuan pepper is the best known, with timur, sansho and the Indonesian andaliman as relatives.
What makes them numbing
Sichuan pepper and its relatives contain hydroxy-alpha-sanshool, a compound that stimulates touch nerves, giving a tingle like a mild electric buzz. It is not a flavour in the usual sense but a sensation.
How cooks use them
In Sichuan cooking, ma, the numbing, is paired with la, the heat of chilli, in mapo tofu and hot pot. Japanese cooks use sansho with grilled eel, Nepali cooks use timur in pickles, and Batak cooks in Indonesia use andaliman.
Tips
Toast and grind the husks only, removing seeds and thorns, as the seeds are gritty. The sensation fades after a few minutes.
Numbing and tingling on EveryMasala
The spices written up so far, best known first.
🇳🇵 Nepal and 5 moreTimurटिमुर
The dried fruit of a Himalayan shrub, prized for its citrus aroma and numbing tingle.Citrus and bright · Numbing and tingling
🇯🇵 Japan and 1 moreSansho山椒
The dried berries and young leaves of a spiny Japanese shrub, prized for their numbing citrus heat.Seed · Citrus and bright · Numbing and tingling
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Timur: Vinayaraj, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Sansho: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0, source