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It's true, I really do love using cucumbers on my menus. The fact is that cucumbers have such a great texture and take to flavors marvelously, and this week's GARLICKY CUCUMBERS are no exception. Smacked (as in, lightly crushed) cucumbers are dressed with sesame oil, soy sauce, pickled garlic, and some chilis. There's not much else to this dish, it's light and refreshing and has enough flavor to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other dishes this week.

You know what pops up a lot in authentic regional Chinese cooking? Mushrooms. There's an almost endless variety, and learning more about what that variety looks like shows you that the term "mushroom" isn't specific enough, as they can all be wildly different. HERBY WOOD EAR MUSHROOM SALAD focuses on wood ear mushrooms of course, which are about as far from your classic "American" mushroom as you can get. Instead of being soft and squishy like a portobello or a button mushroom, wood ears are slick, bouncy, almost crunchy, and have very little flavor of their own. They absorb other flavors wonderfully though, which makes them the perfect textural foil for something like this dish. Dark little wood ear mushrooms dressed with salted chilis, plenty of zippy rice vinegar, plenty more fresh cilantro, and shallots. This one is a refreshing and surprisingly lite addition to our spread, with textures and flavors that contrast beautifully with the rest of the menu this week.

We don't really have a "main dish" this week, but I'd be happy to call our BRAISED WHITE FISH WITH FRAGRANT CHILI-GARLIC SAUCE the "anchor dish." First off, this dish is all about the sauce, so let's figure that out first. Yu Xiang is the technically correct thing to name this sauce/seasoning/flavor, or whatever you want to call it. It pretty much translates to fish fragrant, but that's a bit misleading. The sauce doesn't have any fish in it at all and doesn't smell like fish, and the jury's out on why it's called that... some say that old recipes did have fish, but my money is on the theory that its a sauce that you would cook fish in, but you don't have to. Just like you can put barbecue sauce on things that aren't barbecue, or buffalo sauce on things that aren't buffalo wings (buffalo sauce doesn't contain buffalo either...) So that's how we end up with dishes like fish fragrant eggplant or fish fragrant pork, which you'll find on restaurant menus in Chinatown if you look. But hey, we don't have to argue about a theory, we can prove it by cooking fish with this sauce! Poached white fish (whichever type looks best at the market) and tender napa cabbage in a sweet-spicy-tart sauce with lots of garlic, ginger, chilis, and scallions, ready to warm in your oven and serve with steamed rice. Regional Chinese cuisine really does a great job with seafood, and this dish is a perfect example of that.

SICHUAN "STREET CORN" is almost certainly not "authentic," or at least I can't find any reference to it in my many cookbooks. But the thing about the idea of authenticity is that it evolves as time moves forward. This dish is based on the amazing ear of corn that was sold to me in Xi'an by, you guessed it, a street vendor specializing in Sichuan food. So that counts as authentic to me. If you're familiar with elotes or esquites, this dish will seem familiar, but with Sichuan flavors. Grilled corn is cut from the cob and tossed with some charred peppers, homemade chili oil, and black garlic, then topped with some fresh cilantro. It all comes together in a super-pleasing way, the same as its Mexican counterpart. I think that street vendor was really onto something, and I'm not ashamed to steal the idea.

Cold dishes in Chinese cuisine aren't exactly a focus in Chinese cuisine, but with a food world so vast and varied, you end up with lots of excellent examples even without that focus. Cold meat dishes are especially good, and CHILLED SICHUAN CHICKEN SALAD is one of the best. This is only a "chicken salad" because it's cold; no mayonnaise here. Poached chicken is quickly flash-fried and pulled into thick shreds, then dressed with a light chili oil, black vinegar, and the secret ingredient: sichuan peppercorns. If you've never had them, there really isn't an elegant way to describe them. They are slightly spicy, but with a subtle tingling sensation that really brings this dish to life. This dish is a real keeper, even if you've never heard of it until now.

CUMIN ROASTED POTATOES are a super-popular street food in Xi'an, with stalls selling little paper cups of them everywhere. This dish has always been interesting to me, because it takes some main ingredients that are definitely not usually considered Chinese (cumin and potatoes) and dresses them up into something that is completely Chinese. Roasted potatoes dressed with cumin, some mild chili flakes, a bunch of different seasonings, and sauteed garlic chives. I don't want to compare these to seasoned french fries, because they are absolutely not those... but they scratch that same itch.

I need to stop making up desserts, but follow me on this one. MANDARIN ORANGE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE is certainly not authentic, but if your Chinese grandmother was coming over to dinner at my house, I would be proud to serve this to her. If you're thinking this sounds like it might be sort of like a pineapple upside down cake, you'd be right... but with just enough Chinese flavors and ingredient to keep things in line with the menu. The star here is something that you need to know about if you don't already... proper mandarin oranges from the Chinese market. Those little blue-label oranges that come in the bags at your neighborhood chain grocery store are fine (actually, they are often not fine), but the real stuff from a better source is, undeniably, much better. So, proper mandarin oranges, sliced and sugared, along with goji berries because we need something red, underneath of an orange-infused cake batter, baked up golden brown, then flipped and glazed with marmalade. Authentic? Absolutely no. Delicious? Absolutely yes.