I was craving my Dad’s Chicken Szechuan during my study break but I didn’t have all his fancy ingredients so I modified it slightly and the end result was almost as good as his :) Making this dish brought me to tears, literally, and I was sneezing for about an hour after but it was so worth it. If you’re a fan of spicy food you should seriously give this a go but I’d recommend investing in some disposable gloves and a face mask!
fresh chicken thighs chopped, 10 chilli paid (yes 10!), garlic puree, garlic cloves, fish sauce, onion, snow peas, olive oil, sugar, cornflour, sesame oil, soya sauce
Marinate the chicken in some soya sauce, sesame oil and corn flour and let it sit while you prepare the vegetables. Chop the onion and garlic roughly and all the chills finely. Remove the top and bottom tips of the snow peas and wash. Combine a teaspoon of cornflour with a tbsp of water for use later.
Heat some olive oil in a wok and cook the chicken until it’s about 70% cooked. Set it aside in a bowl with all its juices. Heat some more oil in the same wok, if needed, and add a generous amount of garlic puree, chopped garlic (1 tbsp per serving of chicken approx.) and all the chilli. It’s important here to make sure that the pan is not too hot so the garlic and chilli can cook nice and slowly and not burn. When you feel like most of the aroma is out add the onion then, return the chicken and all its juices from earlier. Stirfry for a couple minutes then add the snow peas. Then, sprinkle some fish sauce and a little sugar for flavour and some water if required. Keep stirring and slowly drizzle the cornflour mixture you made earlier. This should reduce the juice a little and give it that nice thick consistency and glistening look. Stir-fry for a further minute or so then, serve immediately with rice or noodles. If you’re like me and trying to eat healthier cous cous is a good rice replacement!
Enjoy - you deserve it after all the spice burning from the chilli!
P.S. If you don’t want it so spicy deseed the chilli and soak it in water before cooking.