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szechuan chicken - Printable Version

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szechuan chicken - tommag - 05-15-2024

I made this Tuesday night.  https://www.dinneratthezoo.com/szechuan-chicken/
Ive never found szechuan pepper corns in Chinese stores, but Amazon to the rescue!  I also ordered some sambal oelak (not in the recipe but my favorite chili paste). None of the local stores carry sambal oelak anymore.
My takeaway:
The sauce was a little too sweet. Maybe not so much sugar next time.
Scechuan pepper corns aren't that hot but have a numbing effect on the mouth. A tablespoon was plenty. I might cut back a little on those next time.
25 little chili peppers was maybe a bit too much. Left intact they didn't add much heat but chewing them up was a little intense. Next time I'll use maybe 10 of them but cut them open to better put the heat into the sauce.
All in all, it wasn't bad. Hopefully I'll remember how to modify it to make it more to my liking next time.
Oh yeah, if you can't tell, I'm on a Chinese food kick with lots of veggies lately. I might add some broccoli next time.
A tiny bit of sambal oelak on the fork with each bite helped out a bunch for heat. Near as I can tell, sambal oelak is salt fermented hot chilis, much like you'd ferment cabbage for sauerkraut.
I almost forgot. Chicken breast is too easy to overcook and turns out dry I used boneless skinless chicken thighs. It's much more forgiving.


RE: szechuan chicken - tommag - 05-15-2024

I've some frozen mixed vegetables and some green onions on hand. I think I'll use my leftover rice and make some egg fried rice to go with the szechuan chicken leftovers. I used the last of my soy sauce so I'll have to get another bottle of that when I go to the store and replenish my rice supply tomorrow. Most restaurants don't use enough vegetables in their fried rice. I like to make it with about 20% vegetables.