Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking (8 page)

COLD CHICKEN WITH A SPICY SICHUANESE SAUCE
LIANG BAN JI
涼拌雞

This is one of the most marvellous of all Sichuanese culinary ideas. The cold chicken is dressed with seasonings that generally include soy sauce and chilli oil, with sugar, sesame oil, vinegar, crushed garlic and ground, roasted Sichuan pepper added according to taste or mood. It’s very easy to make and stunningly delicious, as I hope you’ll agree. Ever since I first lived in Sichuan, this kind of dish has been part of my everyday kitchen repertoire. I’ve often served a spicy chicken salad alongside other dishes that are more ambitious or complicated to make, and yet this tends to be the one that everyone raves about the most.

I don’t actually use a recipe for this, any more than I would use a recipe to mix up a vinaigrette, so it’s different every time I make it. The following version and its variation, which I’ve measured, are lip-smackingly wonderful, but do please think of them as templates rather than immutable instructions, and improvise as you will. You might want to add more chilli oil in winter, or more refreshing vinegar when the weather is hot and sultry, while a spritz of crushed garlic can be quite enlivening. You can also serve the dressed chicken on a bed of sliced cucumber, or toss some salad greens, perhaps arugula or watercress, into the mix.

In China, they normally poach a whole chicken (tap
here
), then chop it up bones and all, but you can equally well use boneless meat. And don’t forget that this is also a marvellous way of using up leftover roast chicken or turkey: the meat won’t be quite as moist and fresh-tasting as that of a poached bird, but it’s still delicious (and you can add extra chicken stock to the sauce to moisten, if necessary).

About ¾ lb (300–350g) cold, cooked chicken, without bones (tap
here
for poaching instructions)

3 spring onions

¼ tsp salt

1 tbsp sesame seeds (optional)

For the sauce

2 tbsp light soy sauce

1½ tsp Chinkiang vinegar

1½ tsp sugar

1 tbsp chicken stock

3–4 tbsp chilli oil with ½ tbsp of its sediment (or more, if you wish)

¼–½ tsp ground, roasted Sichuan pepper, to taste

1 tsp sesame oil

Cut or tear the chicken as evenly as possible into bite-sized strips or slivers and place them in a deep bowl. Cut the spring onions at a steep angle into thin slices. Mix them and the salt with the chicken. If using sesame seeds, toast them gently in a dry wok or frying pan for a few minutes, until they are fragrant and starting to turn golden, then tip out into a small dish.

Combine all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl.

When you are ready to eat, pour the sauce over the chicken, and mix well with chopsticks or salad servers. Arrange on a serving dish and sprinkle with sesame seeds, if desired.

VARIATION

Another sauce for cold chicken

2 tbsp light soy sauce

2 tsp finely chopped or crushed garlic

2 tbsp chicken stock

3 tbsp chilli oil (with or without its sediment)

½ tsp ground, roasted Sichuan pepper

½ tsp sesame oil

COLD CHICKEN WITH GINGER AND SPRING ONION
YOU LIN JI
油淋雞

This is my recreation of a dish I ate in a Hong Kong restaurant with my friend Susan and some of her friends. We were actually there for the green bell pepper crab, an electrifying potful of fresh crustacean with whole strands of fresh green peppercorns, but I couldn’t help being distracted by this delicious starter. It uses the classic Cantonese method in which sizzling hot oil is used to awaken the heady fragrances of a ginger and onion garnish. On that warm Hong Kong night, I think we had half a chicken, chopped up on the bone, but this recipe uses boneless thigh meat for convenience. A couple of generously sized thighs give enough for four to six people as a starter, with other dishes. It’s best to use poached chicken, which will be beautifully moist. I’ve given a method for poaching the meat here.

You can use a similar method to finish hot, freshly steamed chicken if you like: equally fabulous. Just chop the raw chicken, on or off the bone, lay it in a shallow bowl with a little Shaoxing wine, steam it through, then season with the chopped ginger, spring onion, oil and soy sauce as in this recipe.

2 cold, cooked boneless chicken thighs (about 9 oz/250g in total)

2 tbsp finely chopped ginger

2 spring onions, finely sliced

3½ tbsp cooking oil

3 tbsp light or tamari soy sauce mixed with 1 tbsp water

Cut the chicken evenly into very thin slices and lay them neatly in a serving dish. Scatter with the ginger and spring onions.

Heat the oil over a high flame until hot enough to create a dramatic sizzle when you spoon it over the ginger and onions (try first with a drop to make sure). Then pour the oil evenly over the ginger and spring onions, drizzle with the diluted soy sauce and serve.

To poach a chicken for Chinese cold dishes

You may use any cold, cooked chicken for the recipes in this book, but poached chicken is particularly silken and succulent. The classic Chinese method is to place a whole bird in a measured amount of boiling stock, return it to a boil, then leave it to cool in the liquid. If the measuring is accurate, the chicken will be just cooked by the time the stock is cool, but still a little pink around the bones. This produces chicken flesh that is moist but still a little taut, exactly the way Chinese gourmets like it. It’s a little dicey for home cooks, because of the health risks if the chicken is not sufficiently heated, so in general I recommend using the following method.

Allow the chicken to come to room temperature before you start. Bring to a boil enough water to immerse your bird, without too much room to spare in the pan. Place the chicken in the water, return it quickly to a boil, then skim. Add a piece of ginger, unpeeled and slightly crushed, with a couple of spring onions (white parts only), also crushed. Partially cover the pan with a lid, reduce the heat so the liquid just murmurs gently and poach for about 30 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken. Pierce the thigh joint deeply with a skewer to see if the bird is done: the juices that emerge should run clear, not pink and bloody (you may find it easiest to remove the bird from the pan to do this). When the chicken is just cooked, remove it from the pan and rinse it in cold running water. Set aside to cool.

If you are using smaller amounts of chicken, such as a boned thigh or two, poach them similarly but in less water and for a shorter time. And if you are using a spectacularly good free-range capon or another fine bird, consider poaching it whole, chopping it up on the bone, and serving it at room temperature with nothing but a dip of tamari soy sauce.

VEGETARIAN CLAY BOWL “CHICKEN”
BO BO FU ZHU
鉢鉢腐竹

The Chinese are masters at devising vegetarian versions of meat, fish and poultry dishes that fool not only the eye, but also the palate. In Buddhist temple restaurants, tofu, sweet potato and mushrooms may be cunningly fashioned into convincing replicas of crab meat and shrimp, abalone and shark’s fin, not to mention more humble foods such as meatballs and fish. To imitate cold chicken, the chefs often roll up sheets of fresh “tofu leather” (
dou fu pi
), bind them tightly in muslin and steam them into a semblance of flesh.

This simpler version of “chicken” uses only the dried rolls of tofu “bamboo” (
fu zhu
), that can be found in most Chinese groceries: all you need do is soak them in hot water for an hour or so before use. For a more intense flavor, begin by simmering the tofu using the method for
Tofu “Bamboo” with Spring Onion-flavored Oil
.

5 sticks of dried tofu “bamboo” (about 3 oz/75g)

½ tbsp sesame seeds

1½ oz (40g)
Fried or Roasted Peanuts

3 tbsp finely sliced spring onion greens

Small handful of fresh cilantro, chopped

For the sauce

1 tbsp light soy sauce

½ tsp sugar

2 tsp sesame paste

¼–½ tsp ground roasted Sichuan pepper, to taste

4–5 tbsp chilli oil, with its sediment

½ tsp sesame oil

Salt, to taste

Soak the “bamboos” in hot water from the kettle for about an hour, until they are supple. Shake and squeeze the rolls dry. Holding the knife at an angle, cut them diagonally into bite-sized pieces, discarding any sections that remain hard. Place the pieces in a serving bowl.

Toast the sesame seeds gently in a dry wok or frying pan for a few minutes, until they are fragrant and starting to turn golden, then remove to a dish. Combine all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl.

Pour the sauce over the tofu “bamboo,” then scatter over the peanuts, sesame seeds, spring onions and cilantro. Mix everything together before eating.

CLAY BOWL CHICKEN
BO BO JI
鉢鉢雞

In rural Sichuan, earthenware bowls are commonly used both for steaming food and for serving. Steamed dishes such as belly pork with dark mustard greens, and sweet glutinous rice with red bean paste, were once the centerpieces of wedding and funeral feasts. Nowadays, you’ll find old-fashioned steaming bowls used to give a rustic touch to restaurant dishes. (The delightful-sounding Chinese name of this dish, for example, is because the
bo
, or
b ozi
, of the
bo bo ji
means a rough earthenware bowl, and
ji
is chicken.) Like other Sichuanese cold chicken dishes, this is easy to make but extravagantly delicious. The crunch of the peanuts and the fresh, urgent pungency of the cilantro are a pleasing contrast to the silky chicken.

For the sauce

1 tbsp light soy sauce

½ tsp sugar

2 tsp sesame paste

1 tbsp chicken stock or water

¼–½ tsp ground roasted Sichuan pepper, to taste

4–5 tbsp chilli oil, with its sediment

½ tsp sesame oil

Salt, to taste

½ tbsp sesame seeds

4 oz (100g) beansprouts (optional)

7 oz (200g) cold, cooked chicken

1 oz (25g)
Fried or Roasted Peanuts

3 tbsp finely sliced spring onion greens

Small handful of fresh cilantro, chopped

Toast the sesame seeds gently in a dry wok or frying pan for a few minutes, until they are fragrant and starting to turn golden, then put in a dish. Blanch the beansprouts (if using) briefly in boiling water to wilt them, refresh under the cold tap, then shake and squeeze dry. Mix the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl.