Recipe: Chongqing fried chicken
Asian cuisine is more popular than ever, but making perfect bao buns or gyoza yourself can still be quite challenging. Former FavorFlav contributor Emma de Thouars (known for Emma’s food pet peeves) shows in her new cookbook Amazing Asia that Asian cooking is not difficult at all. You just need to know how to do it and what to get in the house to make, for example, this ultimate Chongqing fried chicken.
“Above all, don’t be alarmed by the enormous quantity of dried chillies in this dish. You don’t eat them; they merely release their smoky and spicy aroma into the chicken. Fishing the small pieces of chicken out from between the chillies with chopsticks may well be the most fun part of this dish, which originated in the Chinese city of Chongqing but is also widely found on menus in the nearby province of Sichuan. I once ate a version at Mission Chinese Food in New York that was so spicy I almost started hallucinating. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, so this one is a tiny bit milder.”
How to make Chongqing fried chicken
- Cut the chicken thigh fillet into 1-by-1-centimetre cubes and mix with the Shaoxing rice wine, soy sauce and a pinch of salt. Leave to marinate while you prepare the remaining ingredients.
- Peel and finely chop the garlic, finely chop the ginger and cut the spring onion into thin rings. Keep the white and green parts separate. Cut the dried chillies into 1-centimetre pieces and remove the seeds. Cut carefully; dried chillies tend to spring in all directions. Grind the Sichuan pepper in a mortar.
- Heat neutral oil in a wok or (deep-)frying pan to 180 °C. Mix the rice flour with the cornflour and season with salt. Coat the chicken in this mixture and deep-fry for 5 to 7 minutes until golden brown and cooked through. Drain on a wire rack.
- Heat 1 to 2 tablespoons of neutral oil in a wok. Fry the garlic, ginger and the white part of the spring onion for approximately 1 minute. Add the dried chillies and fry for 30 to 60 seconds until fragrant, but be careful not to let them burn. Add the fried chicken together with the spring onion greens and ground Sichuan pepper to the pan and fry for another minute. Season with extra salt if desired and sprinkle the spring onion greens over the top.
Title: Amazing Asia
Author: Emma de Thouars
Price: €29.99
Publisher: Nijgh & van Ditmar
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