Sechuan Buttons, Part 1

A few days ago I was invited by Justin Marx of Marx Foods to participate in a contest the company is hosting to encourage folks to create some original recipes using sechuan buttons. The participants get a starter pack of a dozen buttons to use to develop recipes and then the winner receives a prize of some more sechuan buttons--the prize is no big lure, but the chance to play around with a product that I'd never previously heard about was intriguing, and so I agreed to do it. Since this was my first introduction to sechuan buttons, I did a little research and learned they're originally from Africa where they're known as the toothache plant. "The taste for some people is like 'electricity,'" according to producer Koppert Cress USA. The sensation of eating them is described as similar to "putting 9 volt battery on your tongue" and "PopRocks."

To my palate, they have little actual taste but pack plenty of tingly mouthfeel. For me, the sensation is much less painful than a battery and more consistent than PopRocks--it's strangely enjoyable, in small doses. (Chew too many sechuan buttons and you'll continue to feel a tingle on your tongue hours later.) To see the reactions of several tasters, watch this YouTube video.

I think sechuan buttons are a fun little oddity that are best used in moderation. I'd enjoy them incorporated into an amuse bouche--they'd awaken your palate like a defibrillator!--and also in creative cocktails or perhaps an unusual dessert. Adding them to a main course would seem an overdose. I decided to focus my recipe development efforts on cocktails.

Before getting started on inventing my own recipes, I checked out Marx Foods' recommendations for "How to use sechuan buttons in cocktails and coolers." Since I received my buttons just days before the contest deadline, I did not have time to experiment with infusions.

To further understand how the ingredient works when mixed into a drink, I wanted to first try a recipe someone else had created. I started with Junior Merino's Gin Shocktail recipe, which on the link is posted as follows:

"Ingredients:
3 sechuan buttons
1/4 oz simple syrup
3/4 oz fresh pink grapefruit juice
1/8 oz fresh lime juice
1 1/2 oz Moet & Chandon Imperial Brut
Garnish: orange peel, Koppert Cress Szechuan Buttons, and Koppert Cress Purple Shiso.

Pour Champagne into a coupe glass. Muddle the buttons in a cocktail glass then add the rest of the ingredients, ice, shake and double strain into the coupe glass with the champagne and garnish."

Weird that it has no gin!!! (Later, after a more extensive online search, I found that while several sites have posted the above gin-less recipe, this version does include gin and must be the proper original.)

But before I'd found the correction, I adapted the misprinted recipe as follows:

1 sechuan button -- you could use more, but I was conserving my limited supply in anticipation of future experimentation
1/4 oz simple syrup
3/4 oz fresh pink grapefruit juice
1/8 oz fresh lime juice
1.5 oz. gin -- I used Martin Miller's Gin

Muddle the button in a cocktail shaker with simple syrup then add the rest of the ingredients, ice, shake and strain into a cocktail glass.
Yum! Dean and I enjoyed this tasty cocktail and the sechuan button's surprising zip. One drawback was that when the button is muddled it disintegrates a bit too much, so you could easily drink the cocktail without chewing the tiny bits -- and that would eliminate the sensation. So as a future modification to this recipe, I'd say skip the muddling and just sprinkle some of a shredded button to float on top as a garnish.

I'll be experimenting with the sechuan buttons and posting additional thoughts and recipes in the days to come.