Strange Flavored Chicken Recipe

[JBL]

Had a local restaurant that had a dish called Strange Flavored Chicken. It was sliced chicken, bok choy, straw mushrooms, carrots, pea pods, and onion. It was stir fried with a brown sauce that was sweet and peppery. It had 5 cm squares of a red pepper in the sauce. Does anyone know a recipe that would be close to this?

 

I have seen the Bang Bang Chicken recipes but am not sure if it is the sauce I should use.

 

Unfortunately the restaurant closed 10 years ago and the owner is unavailable.

 

Thanks for any assistance,

 

Joe

[889]

It's called 怪味鸡. Ordered it once in a restaurant and the 服务员 came back and told me, "Sorry, the kitchen's all out of 怪味儿 today"!

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/c5oo7k/recipe_sichuan_strange_flavor_chicken_怪味鸡丝/

 

Remember that restaurants in the West often substantially change traditional Chinese dishes.

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Guaiwei ji ("strange-flavor chicken") 怪味鸡 is usually served at room temperature with a sauce, not hot from the stove. In other words, it would be in the 凉拌 or "cold dish" part of a Chinese restaurant menu. Popular in summer. The chicken is poached, not stir-fried. 

 

It features the unique tongue-numbing properties of Sichuan peppercorns 花椒/huajiao and peanut butter 花生酱 or sesame paste 芝麻酱。It also has ginger, onions and garlic. It is typically on the spicy side (contains chili peppers.) An interesting combination of flavors. 

 

Originated in Sichuan. Sounds like the dish you remember was either very substantially changed or it wasn't the same thing. I have eaten it several times, but not made it. Does not look difficult, judging from the recipe. 

 

Here's a video recipe --  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pfvSkQlF-k 

And here is a written one with good illustrations -- https://home.meishichina.com/recipe-26967.html 

 

If you look at these and want to try it, I can translate a recipe for you. 

[abcdefg]

Follow up: I made this dish for supper last night, using a time-honored shortcut. Instead of poaching the chicken, I used a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. Served the chicken, sliced, with the 怪味 sauce over a bed of cucumber and topped it with tender chopped scallions and cilantro from my spring garden. 

 

To be frank, the flavors were there and the dish was enjoyable overall, but the texture was not as pleasant as it would have been with fresh, carefully-poached chicken thighs. Next time I will do that (poach my own chicken) since it isn't tricky or laborious. One can use chicken breasts, but I think chicken legs or thighs, bone in and skin on, have more flavor and have less of a tendency to get dry; they stay juicy. 

 

So many Chinese dishes rely on a web of factors in order to be a success: They must have great flavor, great texture, great appearance and even great smells. So my little improvised "gringo" experiment was OK, but it was not a home run. 

 

  （Photo from Baidu.)

[Michaelyus]

I remember Fuchsia Dunlop's summary of 怪味 Strange Flavo(u)r from Serious Eats, which was quite eye-opening for me. As someone who had it casually within overseas Chinese communities here, having a bit of explanation helped build my appreciation for it.

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Good description! And I like the notion of "going beyond mala 麻辣." Unfortunately, the original poster did not stick around, as is often the case. 

[TheBigZaboon]

Fuschia Dunlop is one of Britain's national treasures, not only does she cook well, but she's a magnificent writer, too. If you can find it, read an essay she wrote in the Guardian entitled something like "On the first day they gave me a chef's hat and a cleaver...". It's about her experience as a student in a Chinese cooking school in Chengdu. As I read it, about a third of the way though, I was dumbfounded not only by how informative the article was, but also by how much drop-dead damn enjoyable it was to read. You were there with her, and there was nothing that took away from your feelings of experiencing everything just as she did. She brought me back to times and places where I, too, was trusted and welcomed to a unique experience in spite of my being an obvious outsider, and probably not qualified to do what I was allowed to do. And I remembered every time I succeeded or I failed to reward my mentors' confidence in me.

 

Sorry to highjack an interesting and informative cooking thread, but I wasn't the one to introduce Fuschia Dunlop, that's someone else's fault. But read her writings on things only tangential to cooking, you won't regret it...

 

TBZ

[realmayo]

She also wrote an equally memorable piece called 'Dick Soup'

https://medium.com/lucky-peach/dick-soup-b3c7f5651b7a

[TheBigZaboon]

The title alone trumps my recommendation, but I still champion "First they gave me a chef's hat and a cleaver..." for genuine literary oomph and maybe even relevance to the struggles everyone here is going through to master Chinese.

 

Just my opinion, though...

 

TBZ

[sanchuan]

On 12/16/2022 at 8:07 AM, TheBigZaboon said:

I still champion "First they gave me a chef's hat and a cleaver..." for genuine literary oomph

That was a great little read. Very honest account of how it feels to be initiated into something you previously had no appreciation of - thanks for the recommendation! 

 

Now, where's my nearest Chinese chef and how do I get them to teach me how to fry rabbit heads...

[Zeppa]

Fuchsia Dunlop (the flower fuchsia comes from the German name Fuchs, hence the spelling if not the pronunciation) also wrote a book about her life in China, called Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper - A sweet-sour memoir of eating in China - I see mine is dated 2008, and I need to re-read it. Have a look inside, it's really good:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sharks-Fin-Sichuan-Pepper-sweet-sour/dp/0091918324

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On 12/16/2022 at 2:49 AM, sanchuan said:

That was a great little read. Very honest account of how it feels to be initiated into something you previously had no appreciation of...

 

Some of her early experiences remind me of tea school in Kunming. I remember the day we finally were able to move up from just pouring room-temperature tap water. No raising or dipping of one shoulder, the pouring vessel held at just the right height, proper grip, proper orientation of the spout. Graduated at that point to pouring boiling water. We felt so "grown up." Eventually we earned the privilege  of pouring actual tea.