Reading Chinese Menus: Characters: 椒 — jiāo — chilli/pepper (Reply)

椒

Since it's my Chinese menu blog anniversary this week, I'm letting myself off the constraint of having a theme. So today's character is simply my favourite character that I've not posted about yet: 椒 (jiāo), the Chinese character for "pepper".

I am quite keen on all kinds of pepper, including chillies (辣椒/là jiāo), bell peppers (菜椒/cài jiāo), pickled chillies (泡椒/pào jiāo), black pepper (黑椒/hēi jiāo), and Sichuan pepper (花椒/huā jiāo).

I'm not actually sure, though, how you tell if 椒 alone on a menu refers to chillies or bell peppers. For example, I'm not sure whether 雙椒茄條 (shuāng jiāo qié tiáo)[see footnote] is aubergine with red and green chillies, or aubergine with red and green bell peppers. I've even eaten it! I just can't remember whether they were relatively thick-walled mild chillies or relatively thin-walled bell peppers. (Perhaps the difference between these two isn't a hugely important one, given that they're all capsicums anyway.)

Anyway, here are some dishes with 椒 in the name:

虎皮尖椒	hǔ pí jiān jiāo	tiger-skin chillies (large, relatively mild chillies pan-fried until the skins blister)
青椒土豆絲	qīng jiāo tǔ dòu sī	shredded potatoes with green peppers
椒鹽豬扒	jiāo yán zhū bā	salt-and-pepper pork chop
剁椒蒸魚	duò jiāo zhēng yú	steamed fish with chopped salted chillies
燒椒皮蛋	shāo jiāo pí dàn	preserved eggs with grilled chillies
黑椒鱔球	hēi jiāo shàn qiú	black pepper eel

Edit: There's a great comment from sunflower on another of my posts listing various words with 椒 in.

Footnote: [0] 雙 (shuāng) means "pair" or "double", so 雙椒 means two kinds of peppers, usually red and green. 條 (tiáo) means "long narrow piece" or "strip", so 茄條 is aubergine sliced into strips.

椒:	jiāo	radical 75 (木)	Cantodict	MandarinTools	YellowBridge	Zhongwen

If you have any questions or corrections, please leave a comment (here's how) and let me know (or email me at kake@earth.li). See my introductory post to the Chinese menu project for what these posts are all about.