This winter has been brutal in China, and no part of the country has been spared. Even in Zhongshan in the south, about the same latitude as Florida, it has been so cold that I have to wear a down coat. The same down coat I wear up in Beijing. According to my father, last year it was so warm during Spring Festival he could wear a t-shirt out. Not so this year (and we have global warming to thank) Although it's about 15 degrees Celsius warmer here, the dampness creates a bone-chilling type of cold, the same type of cold you get in London, Paris, and Shanghai.

Cold weather makes me long for piping hot dishes, like clay pot braises. Last night I decided to make clay pot chicken, and adapted a Vietnamese-style braise from Chef Charles Phan of San Francisco's Slanted Door. One of the major changes I made was the amount of fish sauce. The original recipe called for 3 tablespoons, which I would not recommend to anyone hoping to keep a decent-smelling kitchen. (See Vietnamese Caramelized Pork.) I reduced the amount to 1 teaspoon or a few drops, which is plenty for enhancing the flavors of the dish.

You can also make this dish both mild or spicy. I tossed in seeded Thai chilli, which added a mild tinge; for more spice, just leave the seeds in.

Clay Pot Chicken
Adapted from Chef Charles Phan, via Epicurious

Serves 4

I never thought I would have trouble finding fish sauce in China. Growing up, many of the Cantonese dishes my mother cooked contained fish sauce. In New York's and Boston's Chinatowns, Squid Sauce and other varieties of nam pla were staples in every market.

Even though fish sauce is hardly used in northern Chinese cooking, I didn't think it would be hard to find in Beijing. Even if Thai, Vietnamese, and other Southeast Asian cuisines aren't too popular here, various Cantonese dishes aren't hard to find. But of the 3 supermarkets in my neighborhood, none carried it. I then scoured the Lotus Center in Wudaokou, thinking that with the neighborhood's large Korean population the supermarket must carry all sorts of fish sauce.

Well, I did find it, but not in the sauce aisle. Rather, there was just one kind, amongst imported goods like mirin and shochu. Guangdong province really is like another country.

With fish sauce in hand, I was able to try the Vietnamese Caramelized Pork recipe I found in the NYTimes. It's a good recipe except that it calls for 1/4 cup of fish sauce. That is madness. The point of fish sauce is to use just enough to bring out the dish's other flavors. The first time around I lessened the amount and still my apartment reeked for hours.