finally opened my 500g package of erjingtiao. they are SO much nicer than the ones I got from The Mala Market, no doubt because they have been stored dry for less time and have loss less moisture.

500g is a lot of peppers, I've gotta get more Sichuan recipes into my repertoire, but that was part of the idea. inaugural use of the peppers was shoushi baicai which came out delicious (in part because I threw in some of the "mala sauce" from MM, which is quite good!)