Chinese Sichuan chicken pot - recipe

For several years, gai bo (“chicken pot”) was all the rage at Hong Kong hotpot restaurants. It starts life as one dish – chopped up, bone-in chicken pieces with a thick, complex sauce seasoned with lots of spices that you might not normally associate with Chinese food, but it ends up as something else. After most of the meat has been eaten, hot broth is stirred into the sauce remaining in the pot, which is then used to poach raw ingredients.

Don’t let the long list of ingredients intimidate you: this dish is easy to cook and doesn’t require any special techniques.

The chicken should be cut through the bone into bite-size pieces for stir-fries; you can do this yourself, or have the butcher do it for you.

Behind the spice and numbness of Sichuan dishes, lies a dark and bloody history of wars and conflicts. Listen more on Eat Drink Asia podcast about this cuisine of diversity and excitement.

Buy Sichuan peppercorns on the Goldthread shop.

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