Unlike its Chinese-American incarnation, there is no frying involved in making this dish. Poached chicken is cut into strips, doused with Sichuan chili oil and topped with sliced scallions.
Cook’s notes
Sichuan-style, not traditional Sichuan. In making traditional Sichuan bang bang chicken, the meat is shredded. I am not a fan of shredded meat so I opted to slice mine.
Because chicken thigh fillets are used here, the cooking time is short. After three minutes of boiling, the heat is turned off and the chicken cooks in residual heat.
But for the chicken meat to acquire its ideal texture, the cooking should be stopped immediately and quite abruptly. That means giving it an ice bath once taken out of the poaching liquid. This prevents meat juices from seeping out which it has a nasty habit of doing while still hot. It’s the same principle behind resting your grilled steak or roast beef before slicing and serving.
The cooking time excludes the preparation of the chili sauce. Use homemade Sichuan-style chili sauce or use store-bought.
Sichuan-style bang bang chicken
Ingredients
- 3 slices ginger
- 2 stalks scallions
- 6 chicken thigh fillets skin on
- 2 tablespoons sweet rice wine
- 2 teaspoons coarse salt
- ¼ to ⅓ cup Sichuan chili oil
- 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon Chinese black vinegar
- ½ cup finely sliced scallions
- ½ teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
Instructions
- Put the ginger and scallions in a pot and pour in the rice wine and two cups of water. Stir in the salt.
- Pat the chicken thigh fillets dry with kitchen paper and slide into the pot.
- Set the heat to high and bring the chicken to the boil. Cook the chicken, uncovered, for three minutes (that allows the internal temperature of the chicken to reach or even go over 165F so you don’t get salmonella).
- Cover the pot, turn off the stove and leave the chicken thigh fillets to finish cooking in the residual heat for seven minutes to ten minutes, depending on how thick they are.
- Scoop out the chicken thigh fillets, dump into a bowl of icy water and leave them there for 30 seconds. Scoop out and drain well.
- Slice the chicken thigh fillets and arrange in bowls.
- Mix together the Sichuan chili oil sauce, soy sauce and black vinegar, and drizzle over and around the chicken. Top with scallions.
Sichuan chili oil