How to make the perfect bang bang chicken – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect ...

This salty-sour, spicy Sichuan salad is arguably the best thing ever to happen to cold chicken, and here’s the definitive way to cook itBang bang chicken is one of those dishes, like piccalilli and bibimbap, whose popularity undoubtedly stems at least in part from its joyful-sounding name – in English, anyway. As the Chinese-American Leung family explain in their blog, The Woks of Life, “Bang, 棒” in Chinese, refers to an instrument used for hitting, beating and/or smashing”, which is the method employed to prepare the chicken, of which more later.In any case, there’s more to this Sichuan favourite than just a memorable moniker. “Strange flavour” sauce, for a start, which is strange only in the sense of being unaccountably delicious: a punchy combination of hot and numbing Sichuan peppercorns, spicy chillies, tangy vinegar, rich sesame paste, salty soy sauce and just a pinch of sugar, it’s arguably the single greatest thing ever to happen to cold chicken, and that’s including the coronation of 1953. As happy packed up for a picnic as it is as the centrepiece of a banquet, I’d back this as the ultimate chicken salad. Continue reading...