Today I will share with you guys a sichuangnese style spicy popcorn chicken. If you've ever had this dish in the restaurant you'd know that there is always more red pepper in this dish than chicken, one of its key characteristics. A famous food critique in china even commented how the thrill of finding a piece of chicken in the pile of red pepper is best part of this dish
The key to this dish is its spicy fragrance, so the first step is to make the chilli oil
prepare the dried chilli flakes, you can buy them in the store or make your own by crushing dry toasted pepper
Combine with korean chilli powder, this will add the bright red color to the chilli oil
these are the other ingredients that you can find in chinese supermarkets
add all of there ingredients in a stainless bowl and add in half a cup of vegetable oil. heat 1 cup of vegetable oil until it is slightly smoky. pour the hot oil into the stainless bowl. the oil we started with in the bowl will help lower the temperature and prevent the spices from burning
Let the spices soak in the oil and once it is cooled and strain, now the chilli oil is ready. i made extra chilli oil here because it is really useful to use in many recipes
Now we will prepare the chicken, in the traditional recipe, every piece of chicken has a bone in the middle but that adds a lot more work so in a family recipe I like to use chicken thigh meat, about 400 grams or so, debone and dice into the size shown
Wash clean the chicken pieces and dry with kitchen towels, place in a bowl and mix with white pepper powder, cooking wine, soy sauce, salt and once its well mixed, mix with corn starch. add a little bit oil at the end and set for 15 minutes
Now we will prepare the most important ingredient, the dry red peppers, cut up about 40 grams or so and deseed them and set them aside
Now combine the ingredients shown on the screen to make the sauce and set that aside
The next step is frying the chicken, place at least 2 cups of vegetable oil because you need enough oil for the chicken pieces to float. The oil has to be at least 160degree celcius and above. you can test with 1 piece of chicken and if large bubbles form around the chicken piece then the oil is ready. now add in all the chicken pieces one piece at a time and try to keep them separated when adding them in. make sure you are using high heat and fry the chickens in 2 batches, if frying them all at once the oil temperature will be lowered too quick and cause the chicken to stick together and you won't achieve the crunchy texture
Once the chicken pieces are in the oil, don't touch them until the chicken pieces freely floating, slightly rotate them until the chicken pieces seize up slightly and turn darker in color and crunchier in texture, remove the chicken and set aside. repeat with all the chicken pieces .keep oil heat on high heat for 10 seconds after all the chickens are strained out to raise the temperature again and place in all the chicken pieces from earlier to refry a second time, after 1-2 minutes they are ready. careful not to burn them
Heat a pan hot and add in a quarter cup of chilli oil and add in ginger, garlic and scallion and stir on medium heat, add in 10 grams of chins prickly ash and tsing ma pepper and the prepared dry pepper from earlier, stir until fragrant, use only medium heat so they they don't burn. when the nice spicy fragrant fills your kitchen add in the fried chicken pieces and incorporate everything together. pour in the prepared sauce, stir fry until everything is well combined and plate