Recipe: How to Make Double Pepper Chicken
I have recently fallen head over heels in LOVE with Szechuan Chinese food (thank you to Ray!)
With that comes your bible list of restaurants to try when you are first experiencing numbing spicey deliciousness if you are in southern California. (list to come soon).
Among my food travels, I came across a dish called Double Pepper Chicken, famously from Chengdu Taste Restaurant located in San Gabriel Valley.
I think the word obsessed would be an understatement. I was eating out twice a week, I couldn’t get enough of this dish. If you are like me, you succumb to the addictive properties and mind-numbing numbness.
And then, the worst happened. I moved to downtown Los Angeles. Driving was not always an option, but how do I get my fix?! I took it upon myself, and my guinea pig boyfriend to perfect the recipe, and I think I finally have it. It’s no exact to their recipe, but I would say it’s 97% accurate. Comparing mine to the restaurant:
Chicken tenderness - same
Salt level - mine is less salty, but that is a choice. I believe they add more salt and more soy sauce.
Spicy level - same, depending on the day! Serranos are fickle that way.
Numbing level - Mine is less numb, but that’s a personal choice.
Satisfaction level - I prefer to cook for others rather than myself, but this is one dish I could bust out at 1am because theres a craving. Satisfaction is higher in the restaurant because someone else cooks, but it’s pretty damn close if you are down to cook and clean!
Although I cook it quite often, I still love going to the restaurant and giving them all my money. My go to’s are the Double pepper chicken, Toothpick lamb, and Sliced potatoes with green peppers (I have tried to recreate this dish as well, but the fail is too hard, and now its 3 years later, so it’s not gonna happen).
But alas, here I want to share with you my hard work and findings.
Ingredients:
Ingredients / prep for Chicken mixture (part 1)
1 lb of chicken skinless boneless things or breasts chopped (thigh is more tender, but breast is much easier to cut)
3 tablespoons Chinese wine (xiao xing cooking wine or cooking wine)
3 tablespoons potato starch or corn starch. (I have made it using 1 tablespoon of flour before, but it does change the flavor slightly)
Garlic sliced (you only need a “few”, but I use a whole handful because why not)
vegetable oil - I use enough to cover the pan about a half inch.
Ingredients for Pepper mixture (part 2)
1/2 lb Serrano peppers sliced
3 Korean red peppers
2 tablespoons Ginger - chopped.
2 tablespoons of soy sauce (1 tablespoon dark, 1 tablespoon light soy sauce work best, but don’t worry if you don’t have light)
2 tablespoons green Szechuan peppers
Directions:
Slice garlic, chop chicken (about the size of a quarter).
Mix garlic, chicken, xiao xing wine, starch, and 1 tablespoon salt
Put vegetable oil in a pan (I recommend using something that gets very hot - a wok wasn’t possible for me on an electric stove, but my cast iron did the trick!) and heat up until it sizzles when you drop a pinch of starch in it. I like to have it cover at least half an inch so it covers half of the chicken at a time.
Once it’s hot, drop the chicken mixture in and get it all covered in the oil as quickly as possible. (once the chicken is white on the outside, take it out) this normally takes about 1 minute, and it’s ok if the chicken still has some raw sides showing (because we will be cooking it again)
After removing the chicken, drop the serrano chilies in the hot pan, sauté, but not brown.
Once the serranos are sautéed, add ginger and mix.
Chicken mixture —> add the soy sauce and Green Szechuan peppers and mix well.
Add entire chicken mixture to pan with the serranos until chicken is cooked (about 1 minute, try not to overcook the chicken so it’s very tender)
Serve :) you will probably want to add more salt and soy sauce to flavor at this point. There is quite a bit of oil as well so feel free to strain out. I personally like to keep the oil :D Enjoy!
