Guizhou's chili chicken and delectable hot sauce

Chili chicken is popular throughout the Central Highlands, and both Hunan and Chongqing (Sichuan) have their own delicious versions. 

My favorite, though, comes from Guizhou. It is not as spicy as the other two, but I find the flavor much richer.

The secret to Guizhou’s famous chicken dish is soaking dried chili peppers until they are soft, and then grinding them with ginger and garlic into a creamy paste that the locals call ciba lajiao, or “mochi chili.” 

Ciba is a rice paste that is used throughout the south for snacks, sweets, and as a starch, and this sauce probably got its name because it too is thick.

Ciba lajiao

The following recipe gives you extra sauce that can be refrigerated for some other dish. (Try it in a quick stir-fry or braise with either bean curd or pork, or as a dipping sauce for jiaozi with a dash of soy sauce and/or vinegar.) Do keep your eye on it, though, as I found that guests tend to snag the jar once they've tasted the sauce.

The soaking of the chilies tames much of the heat and turns them mellow, and then a slow turn in hot oil with other aromatics magically turns this into something truly special.

A second secret to perfect Guizhou-style chicken is using bone-in meat that you chop into bite-sized pieces. The Chinese believe—and I agree with them—that the meat on the bones is the sweetest, and having to deal with the bones forces me to linger over this dish and appreciate all of the many layers instead of wolfing it down.

Chili chicken

This recipe will give you a medium-hot chicken dish. What this means is that you should not be alarmed at how hot the sauce initially is, because the heat of the chilies calms down as the sauce is cooked. However, this heat can be increased or decreased as you wish.

Chili chicken

Guìzhōu làzĭ jī 貴州辣子雞

Guizhou

Serves 4

Guizhou ciba chili sauce (makes about 1 cup):

1 cup dried Thai chilies

Warm water as needed

¼ cup peeled, coarsely chopped garlic

¼ cup peeled, coarsely chopped ginger

1 teaspoon sea salt

Freshly-ground black pepper

1 cup fresh peanut or vegetable oil, divided

Grind the aromatics

Chicken and marinade:

Half a whole fryer

2 tablespoons rice wine (Taiwan Mijiu)

2 or more tablespoons Guizhou ciba chili sauce (see recipe above)

2 tablespoons soy sauce

¼ cup cornstarch

½ cup or more peanut or vegetable oil (used all right if it smells fresh)

Sauce:

2 or more tablespoons Guizhou ciba chili sauce (see recipe above)

2 teaspoons sugar

2 tablespoons soy sauce

¼ cup water

1 medium leek or 3 green onions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths

 

Whirled into a paste

1. Start this recipe the day before you plan to serve it. First make the sauce: Rinse the chilies, remove the stem ends, and place them in a medium work bowl. Cover the chilies by about 2 inches with warm water and let the soak for at least 12 hours and up to 24, or until the chilies have softened completely. (If you are in a hurry, pour boiling water over them instead.) Drain the chilies in a colander, discard the water, and shake them dry.

2. Place the softened chilies in a mini food processor fitted with a metal blade (or blender) and add the garlic, ginger, salt, about 10 grinds of black pepper (or to taste), and ½ cup oil. Pulse these together to form a coarse paste, scraping the sides down as necessary.

Chopped bone-in chicken

3. Pour the rest of the oil into a cool wok and add the chili paste. Slowly cook the chili paste over medium heat, stirring often, until the chilies have turned from red to a mahogany hue; this should take about 30 minutes. When it is ready, the garlic will taste mellow and there will be a yellowish foam on top of the sauce. Cool the sauce to room temperature, and then refrigerate it in a closed glass jar.

4. Clean and dry the chicken. Use a heavy cleaver to chop the chicken into bite-sized pieces no larger than 1-inch square. (Even the breast meat should be trimmed down, as this allows the marinade’s flavors to penetrate the chicken well.) Place the chicken in a medium work bowl, toss with the rice wine, chili sauce, and soy sauce. Marinate the chicken for 2 hours or so. Drain off and discard any liquid and then toss the chicken with the cornstarch.

Fry chicken in batches

5. Place a wok over high heat, and when it is hot, add ½ cup oil and swirl it around to coat the inside. Add a handful of the coated chicken and toss it in the hot oil until it has browned. Remove the chicken to a clean plate but leave the oil in the wok. Repeat with the rest of the chicken until all have been cooked, adding more oil as needed.

6. To make the sauce, return the wok to medium heat and add the chili sauce. Stir it around in the hot oil to release its fragrance, and then add the cooked chicken. Toss in the sugar, soy sauce, and water, and turn the heat up to high. Cook the chicken quickly until the sauce has reduced. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Finally, add the leeks or green onions and toss these together with the chicken only until the greens wilt. Plate and serve immediately.

Guizhou: China's spicy wonderland & its perfectly spicy chicken

Little Guizhou doesn't get much respect in the culinary world, even among otherwise knowledgeable Chinese connoisseurs. She's locked away, dominated by her flashier neighbors: Sichuan to the north, Yunnan to the south, and Hunan to the east, as well as another overlooked place to the south: Guangxi.

And so when I started looking into Guizhou's foods, I wasn't expecting much, mainly because there is so little written about the local dishes. I have shelves and shelves of Chinese cookbooks, for example, but not a single one is devoted to Guizhou. If Guizhou's culinary creations are ever mentioned, they are as little side notes to Yunnan's cuisine. 

Part of this is because Guizhou has been on the outskirts of Chinese life for almost all of the nation's history, home mainly to ethnic minorities like the Miao, who are more related to the Vietnamese than the Han Chinese. Add to that the fact that most of Guizhou is hot, humid, mountainous, and exceptionally remote, so it's little wonder that few have heard about its singular dishes.

Map courtesy Wiki Commons

Another problem is that so much of the local foods really are the province of  minority people who live in isolated villages where domestic animals are a luxury and where wild things make their way to the dining table, everything from deer and snakes to insects, all the way to unusual furry forest creatures and even elephant trunks.

This is definitely a very long way from Beijing...

But the time has come for Guizhou to shake off this provincialism and claim a place in China's wonderful crazy quilt of flavors. The problem for me, as with so many of these out-of-the-way places, was finding out what it was that the local people ate. So, I started with my friends.

I knew for a certainty that the food was wonderfully spicy, not from a book mind you, but from my former boss at the central library in Taiwan, who later became one of my best friends there, as her husband grew up in Guizhou. Both of them are confirmed chili-heads, and nothing made them happier than dishes so hot that just the thought of them makes me sweat.

But then again, that is pretty much true of most homestyle dishes from south-central China -- including Sichuan, Hunan, Yunnan, and Guangxi -- so Chinese connoisseurs have divided these areas into exactly what kind of heat we're talking about.

Thigh meat in the wok

 Sichuan, for example, is the home of mala, or numbing spicy. Guizhou, though, is categorized as suanla, or sour hot. And while most of the Guizhou dishes I've tried have rarely been tart, sugar isn't really used when cooking, which sets this cuisine apart from almost all others. But not to worry: the heat and seasoning can be adjusted to suit your liking, so there's no reason to avoid these tempting dishes.

First up is a local classic, Guizhou Chicken. Traditionally this is made with a whole chicken that is chopped up into bits, but I've decided to go with boneless, skinless thigh meat for a couple of reasons. 

The most obvious one is laziness. Using boneless meat just makes life a whole lot easier. The second reason is that I'm not too crazy about the way that white meat dries up in lots of stir-fries and braises, and as I'm partial to the moist meat of chicken thighs, this seems the way to go. And why skinless? Because that is how almost all thigh meat is sold now. I have no clue as to why that is. But if you want to keep the skin on or the bones in, that's totally all right with me.

This dish is so complete that all you need is some steamed rice and a green vegetable to round it out. Don't count on any leftovers.

Guizhou chicken 
Guizhou ji 貴州雞 
Guizhou
Serves 4 to 6 as part of a multicourse meal, or 2 to 3 as a main dish

18 ounces (or so) boneless chicken thighs (see Tips)
3 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
2 tablespoons thinly sliced ginger
3 green onions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
4 teaspoons finely minced garlic
1 tablespoon regular soy sauce
4 tablespoons rice wine
1 to 2 tablespoons Guizhou-style hot sauce (see Tips)
4 tablespoons filtered water
2 tablespoons chili oil, or to taste
Chopped cilantro for garnish

The chicken simmering away

1. Rinse the chicken and pat dry. Cut the chicken into 1-inch cubes. Heat the oil in a wok over high until the oil starts to smoke and add the chicken. Cook the chicken over high heat until it is completely browned; remove to a platter and drain as much of the oil back into the wok as possible.

2. Return the wok to high heat and immediately add the ginger, green onions, and garlic. Cook for a few seconds, and then add the wine, and then the hot sauce; fry these together for about a minute to release all of the fragrances. 

3. Pour the water into the wok and add the chicken. Reduce the heat to low and simmer the chicken for about 15 minutes, or until just cooked through. Taste and adjust the seasonings, and then add chili oil to taste. Plate the chicken and scrape all of the sauce over the top. Garnish with cilantro and serve hot.

Tips

Use any cut of chicken you like; if you use bone-in chicken, increase the amount to 2 pounds. As always, free-range, organic chickens are recommended.

Add chili oil as the final touch

I prefer to use Taiwanese rice wine, or mijiu, for this dish because it has a very subtle taste, while Shaoxing would be too noticeable. Japanese sake can also be substituted.

Guizhou hot sauce can be found in most well-stocked Chinese groceries; Guilin-style hot sauce is almost the same and can be substituted. These both garlic and black beans in them and are usually sold in little jars. If you can't find either, use whatever Chinese chili sauce you like as long as it isn't sweet, and add a couple teaspoons of chopped fermented black beans, as well as more garlic, to the sauce.