[Pudu]

laziji 辣子鸡 - spicy chicken, chicken with chilies, firecracker chicken, Chongqing chicken - is my favourite dish. I am constantly looking for ways to tweak and improve it.

Yesterday I took a good idea from Fuschia Dunlop - fry the chicken twice. I have done this before with other things - homemade french fries, etc - but why I never thought to do it with this dish, I have no idea.
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Fry the chicken in small batches for 3 or 4 minutes each. Then let the oil get good and hot and fry the chicken again briefly in even smaller batches. It ends up wonderfully crispy on the outside and moist inside.

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[SIZE=2](Sorry for the mediocre photos - it's always dark by the time I'm done cooking and I'm rubbish at trying to adjust the white balance.)[/SIZE]


The only problem with this dish is that between the cooking and the eating - you consume far too much beer of an evening. :beerchug:

 

[biglemoncoke]

did the chicken needed to be coated with starch? or did it go straight into the wok for frying?

 

[Clayton SF]

laziji 辣子鸡 - spicy chicken, chicken with chilies, firecracker chicken, Chongqing chicken - is my favourite dish. I am constantly looking for ways to tweak and improve it.

Yesterday I took a good idea from Fuschia Dunlop - fry the chicken twice. I have done this before with other things - homemade french fries, etc - but why I never thought to do it with this dish, I have no idea.

Spoiler: Chicken.

Spoiler: Prep time.

Fry the chicken in small batches for 3 or 4 minutes each. Then let the oil get good and hot and fry the chicken again briefly in even smaller batches. It ends up wonderfully crispy on the outside and moist inside.

Spoiler: Hot!

(Sorry for the mediocre photos - it's always dark by the time I'm done cooking and I'm rubbish at trying to adjust the white balance.)
The only problem with this dish is that between the cooking and the eating - you consume far too much beer of an evening.

 
This has got to be one of my favorite dishes that I've never made nor eaten. Beautiful pictures.

 

[Pudu]

biglemoncoke, no starch. One time I did try coating the chicken with starch prior to frying but was very underwhelmed with the results.

This has got to be one of my favorite dishes that I've never made nor eaten...

Haha!
Seriously, you gotta try it. There must be a dozen places near you that do an excellent version of this. Grab parbaked and go. Just make sure they use a ton of fresh Sichuan peppercorns. I find I get the best results if I ask for the dish using the name laziji and say I want lots of huā jiāo. If you use the right words, people think you know what you are talking about and don't dumb the food down as much.

 

[SunTanScanMan]

Looks amazing Pudu

 
I love chillies and god that dish looks good.

Beautiful knife and knifework on the ingredients - My vegetables have a more 'rustic' look to them after I'm done with them..
 
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For something different I like to add squid in my kimchijeon - yours looks amazing

 

[parbaked]

Seriously, you gotta try it. There must be a dozen places near you that do an excellent version of this. Grab parbaked and go.  

We don't have very good Szechuan food in San Francisco.
We'd have to drive an hour to find the good stuff!!
Yours looks great!

 

[Pudu]

Thanks guys.

We don't have very good Szechuan food in San Francisco.
We'd have to drive an hour to find the good stuff!! ...

What?!? How can that possibly be? I would never have guessed that.

 

[parbaked]

Most of the Chinese restaurants in SF are older and not 100% authentic. Tends to be "Americanized" to suit their audience.
The more authentic food is by and for newer immigrants who have settled outside the city, mostly down around Silicon Valley.
Sad but true...

 

[Pudu]

Man, that is so depressing.


The funny thing is that I learned about laziji in Namibia. The food there is, as a rule, really, really ... REALLY not spiced at all. Garlic is about as crazy as it gets there - the only exception being piri piri chicken. And the two Chinese restaurants in town provided some of the worst Chinese cuisine I've ever tasted. However, the president at the time was building a multi-million dollar boondoggle of a residence and had imported most of the labour from China (in a country with effectively 40% unemployment - don't get me started). The Chinese construction guys frequented one of these restaurants that provided such awful food. So we talked to the owner and told him we wanted what those guys were having. One of my friends had lived in China for a while and spoke a bit of Mandarin.

It turned out that the owner was from Chengdu and was delighted to make us some authentic Sichuan cuisine. Soon, every time we went back, he would cook our order personally. A week before we left Namibia I asked a huge favour of him and he graciously accepted. He took me back into his kitchen and gave me a lesson in how he made laziji. An awesome gentleman to whom I consider myself en-debited.

I think it's so disappointing when restaurateurs have to tailor their cooking to accommodate local tastes to the point where it loses everything of value.

Spoiler: shiitake ginger udon chicken soup tonight

 

[Clayton SF]

Well I'd say ok Szechuan food is better than none. I'm game for finding an ok Szechuan restaurant in SF.
 
X & Y Restaurant in SF's Chinatown seems to have garnered some well-know accolades. Besides, I'm looking to try laziji 辣子鸡 and it looks like they serve it there.
 
I made Hoisin Ribs tonight. And it is a hot night in SF.
 

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

laziji 辣子鸡 - spicy chicken, chicken with chilies, firecracker chicken, Chongqing chicken - is my favourite dish. I am constantly looking for ways to tweak and improve it.

The only problem with this dish is that between the cooking and the eating - you consume far too much beer of an evening.

 

My favorite thing to do with this dish especially in a bistro or when the restaurant serves beer is to tell people who haven't eaten it before to always eat the chili with the chicken (it helps that some people ask for a spoon and fork), and then I tell them "no water, just beer! here, try the Cerveza Negra!" (my favorite beer). We've had to drive home with one incoherent dumbschiit in the back seat with everybody barely buzzed, and my favorite restaurant to do this in is on the opposite side of the metro - the older part of the city near the bay (ie the area that the Japs and Americans flattened in 1945). None of them realized that the reason why I can eat it like that is because I practically use Sriracha as ketchup already, without any adverse reactions. I haven't tried that "Colon Cleanser" brand of hot sauce yet though, although one thing I've learned is that drinking milk with a kilo of 800,000 Scoville chicken wings is what screwed me over (not the wings on their own).

 

Our other trick (and by "our" it's because two of my highschool and college buddies, like me, have mothers from the chili region here, smack around an active volcano) is to take a chili pepper, cut it in half, and then wipe it on the rim of a beer mug when someone goes to the toilet. It didn't even start with me, but they had the most puzzling reaction: I kept drinking to extinguish it, thinking it was chili seed stuck in my teeth. After that I brought my mugs to the toilet when I peed (resulting in an even more hilarious bit as everyone there - as in people we didn't know - laughed at how I drank and peed at the same time), not so much that I can't take the heat, but because  the taste was weird (with light lager anyway).

 

 

[SunTanScanMan]

Quick dinner of egg noodles. I didn't have much ingredients at home as I haven't been shopping due to assignments. 
I  fancied something hot and hearty.
 
- 3 diced potatoes
- 1 chopped carrot
- 3 chopped onions
- dried seaweed (soaked in water)
- 2 dried egg noodles
- 5 chopped cloves of garlic
- 3 fresh chillies
 
- lightly fried all the ingredients (except the seaweed) in veg oil with salt, pepper in a cheap saucepan with the lid on.
- Add generous dash of soy sauce
- Add water boiled in kettle
- Add dash of sesame oil
- Add noodles, then wait until they are are done
 
 

 

[Pudu]

Well I'd say ok Szechuan food is better than none...

Spoiler: it is a hot night in SF!

Yum! What kind of ribs? I have some pork spareribs in the freezer I need to do something with.

The only thing I'll say is that crappy laziji is worse than none if it turns you off looking for the good stuff. Good lazji makes your mouth burn after two bites, then you sip some beer and get this amazing tingling sensation, and soon your mouth tells you you must eat some more - it's a vicious, delicious cycle that builds into an overload of endorphin laced spicy, tingling goodness. :tongue_smile:

Bad laziji (of which I've had plenty) tastes like anemically spiced chicken popcorn.

...

Spoiler: I fancied something hot and hearty

And yum!

Do you make your own dashi? By the way, I know many westerners poo-poo nakiri bōchō in favour of gyuto, but I adore mine. A cleaver and a razor blade had a baby - and it is my nakiri.

 

[parbaked]

Man, that is so depressing.

I think it's so disappointing when restaurateurs have to tailor their cooking to accommodate local tastes to the point where it loses everything of value.
 

It's not that bad...we have plenty of great food to choose from.
 

Good lazji makes your mouth burn after two bites, then you sip some beer and get this amazing tingling sensation, and soon your mouth tells you you must eat some more - it's a vicious, delicious cycle that builds into an overload of endorphin laced spicy, tingling goodness.

Bad laziji (of which I've had plenty) tastes like anemically spiced chicken popcorn.

 

One key to good laziji is how they cut the meat.
In Chendu it's chicken wings cut in halve - so two small bones in each piece.
One has to really work the pieces with your teeth and tongue to get the meat off the bones. This saturates your mouth with the spices. 
 
We used to go to a great Szechuan restaurant in Monterey Park outside Los Angeles. This is near where Huy Fong Sriracha is from so lots of Asians.
My friends wife was Korean and loved it spicy. She'd take home the leftover chills from laziji.
The next day she'd mix it with Popeye's chicken popcorn for a ghetto laziji snack.

 

[Pudu]

Hahaha! I do that too - reuse the chilies to make ghetto spicy snacks ( but I'd never admit it to anyone ).
And I only use wings - they're the easiest and tastiest for this dish.

I always thought SF was flush with awesome Chinese food.