Revel in the numbing spice of this Szechuan spicy flavour bomb. Chicken with rice will never be the same again.

Time: 3/5
Frying chicken in batches precludes time efficiency

Effort: 3/5
Still results in a large amount of delicious food

Half-braise, half-casserole, all delicious

The term 煲 ( Bo or Bao in Cantonese and Mandarin respectively) may be a noun, meaning a pot. It could also be a verb, to boil something in a pot. In a Chinese culinary context, it can refer to a large family of dishes that are served in a pot made of clay or metal, which retains a lot of heat and keeps the dish warm. The closest parallel to Western cooking I can think of is casseroles or pot roasts, where the food is served piping hot from its cooking vessel.

麻辣雞煲 (Ma laat gai bo / Ma la ji bao), then, is a Bo of chicken ( Gai / Ji) with a numbing-spicy taste (Ma laat / Ma la). The defining ingredient is the Szechuan peppercorn, which produces a tingling sensation on the tongue and lips that many find tantalising. This numbing effect, combined with other aromatics and sauces, produces the Szechuan spicy flavour profile.

Strong, bold and savoury are words that come to mind – when done well, Szechuan spicy should leave an aftertaste that lingers on the palate well into the next day. While derided by the older generation of us Southerners as overpowering and lacking in subtlety (“all that spice is covering up the original flavour of the food”, you’d hear them gripe), it is popular among the younger folk who enjoy it in their hotpots and their noodle soups in the many eateries catering to Szechuan-style cuisine.

I’m not one to embroil myself in debates with loud-spoken uncles about the moral superiority of Cantonese cuisine over delicately steamed fish on the dinner table. For my purposes, Szechuan spicy chicken is a delicious way to consume protein, is relatively easy to make a large amount of food in one go, and goes really well with rice. Any one of those is reason enough for me to try my hand at recreating the Szechuan day-long numbing spicy flavour hangover experience in my home kitchen.

If you’re looking for other big, bold flavour profiles to go with chicken, go check out the Taiwanese Three Cup Chicken that uses similar techniques, or these Filipino-inspired Chicken Tocino skewers for the grill!

Dramatis Personae

Hang on to your hats folks, because this ingredient list is quite a party.

Chicken – 100-200g pax

Boneless chicken thighs, with or without skin, are much more forgiving than breast. They’re basically impossible to overcook, which comes in really handy when intending to meal prep and microwave the leftovers. Having said that, using breast or tenderloin is fine if you’re careful not to overcook them.

Like how meats are seared before braising in Western cooking, I’ll be “passing it through oil” (過油; Guo yau / Guo you – essentially a brief deep fry) to brown it for extra flavour.

Spices

Szechuan peppercorn is the star ingredient, and the source of the ‘numbing’ sensation that is referred to by the term mala. I buy mine as a pre-ground powder purely for convenience. A brief fry in oil is needed to wake up the flavours though – it won’t taste like much if just sprinkled onto food.

Other optional nice-to-haves would be cumin and five spice powder.

Aromatics

Dried chilis bring heat, which Szechuan peppercorns don’t really have.

Garlic, shallots and ginger. The old faithfuls. Shallots in particular take on a wonderful sweetness when caramelised by intense heat, which onions can’t quite match.

豆瓣醬 (Dau ban jeung / Dou ban jang) one teaspoon pax – A condiment made primarily of fermented soybeans and further seasoned with chilis, garlic and various other delicious things. Think of it as a cousin of Japanese miso and Korean gochujang. It has a mild heat, pleasant umami and slight acidity, and sees heavy use in Szechuan cuisine.

甜麵醬 (Tim min jeung / Tian mian jiang) one teaspoon pax – Another fermented paste, but this time made primarily of wheat and prevalent in more northern cuisines like Beijing-style cooking. An intriguing condiment that straddles the line between sweet and savoury, it’s well worth a place in any pantry to add funk and depth to any dish – try it with duck!

Sauce

Light and dark soy sauce is an ever-reliable dynamic duo. The former provides umami and salt, the latter gives an appealing dark colour to the food. Allow about a teaspoon per portion, total.

Nobody knows what’s in oyster sauce (most certainly not oysters), but it tastes real good! One teaspoon per person. Skip at your own peril.

Chinese rice wine is a clean-tasting source of alcohol, which helps bring out flavour compounds that don’t dissolve in water. It also has a subtle sweet taste which is also nice. Just a tiny splash will do.

Garnish

Sesame oil should always be added at the very end, after the heat is switched off, in order to preserve its delicate aroma.

Cilantro should also be added at the end, both to preserve its colour and its grassy, herby notes which brings freshness to an otherwise rich dish.

Vegetables – 200g pax

Always eat your vegetables! This week it’s lettuce stir fried with some garlic and salt, and a tiny bit of sugar, for no reason other than because it’s quick to cook and provides a clean, sweet counterpoint to all that flavour going on with the chicken.

Executive Summary

1. Get rice cooking. Prepare aromatics and sauce components.
2. Fry chicken, working in in batches.
3. Fry aromatics in remaining oil.
4. Return chicken to wok, add sauce components.
5. Braise on gentle heat until flavours combine.
6. Serve with cilantro and sesame oil for garnish.

Play by Play

Aromatics ready. Things go quick once the wok heats up, so have everything at hand. I’m preparing some extra garlic for the lettuce later as well.

Sauces assemble, and I’m beginning to think the loud uncles are right. Why do I need all this stuff for Northerner cooking?

Passing the chicken through oil. Tilting the pan allows me to achieve greater depth with a smaller volume of oil than if I laid the pan flat, which means less grease, less wastage and less cleanup. It’s tricks like these that make me reluctant to go back to electric induction stoves.

Frying the aromatics after draining excess oil, staying on high heat. The shallots and ginger benefit from more time to caramelise, while I’m holding the garlic back to avoid it burning. I’m tilting the pan again to get a deep-frying effect.

Forming the sauce, then adding spices with the garlic. A brief fry really does help develop flavour from the oyster sauce and the various pastes. Beware of splatter though, as there’s a lot of moisture in the pan now.

Return chicken to the pan and let it simmer on gentle heat. Taste and adjust for seasoning. Now is an opportunity to get other things done, like dividing up the rice or doing some cleaning up. I could be cooking the vegetables now that my hands are free, but my other pans aren’t big enough so I’m saving that for after the chicken is done.

Lunch for days, and garlic breath for an entire week if I’ve done it well.

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