Bang Bang Chicken (Bobo Gai)

Name: Bang Bang Chicken (Bobo Gai)
Total time: 50 min
Yield: Serves 2–3 as a starter
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 400 g chicken breast (or 2 whole legs, bone-in — the more forgiving poach); 1 tbsp (15 g) Shaoxing wine, 6 slices ginger, 2 spring onions; Water to cover, at the bare simmer; 3 tbsp (45 g) Chinese sesame paste (or tahini at a push), loosened with 3 tbsp (45 ml) hot water; 2 tbsp (30 ml) chilli oil (the red oil and its sediment), or to taste; 1 tbsp (15 ml) Chinkiang black vinegar; 1 tbsp (15 g) sugar; 1 tsp (5 g) salt, ½ tsp (2 g) Sichuan pepper powder; 1 clove garlic, grated; 2 tsp (10 ml) soy sauce; 150 g cucumber, seeded and julienned — the cool bed; 2 spring onions, sliced fine; a scatter of toasted sesame seeds

Chinese · Easy · Serves 2–3 as a starter

The Sichuan street vendor's cold chicken and the sesame sauce's showcase: poached chicken breast shredded fine and dressed at the table in the sauce of sesame paste, chilli oil, black vinegar and sugar — the sweet-sour-numbing trinity over the chicken's silk. The name is the street's own (the wooden mallet's banging that once tore the poached meat to its shreds), and the technique is the gentle poach and the sauce's balance.

Quantities live in the recipe card.

The chicken and its poach

the more forgiving poach)

The sesame-chilli sauce

To finish

the cool bed

- The poaching plan: the chicken poached from cold — the water, wine, ginger and onion brought to the barest simmer with the chicken in it, then the pot's lid on and the heat off for the legs' sake. The residual heat finishes the meat while the pot cools — the Sichuan kitchen's own gentle poach, and the boiling water the breast's rubber. - The sesame paste's loosening: the 45 g paste stirred with the 45 ml hot water to a pourable, smooth base before any other sauce element joins — the loosened paste seizing the sauce's whole texture.

Step 1. The poach and rest — 18–20 minutes' patience. The chicken in the cold poach brought to the barest simmer (the surface's shiver, never the boil), held 2 minutes at that shiver, then the lid on and the heat off — the breast resting in the cooling liquor 15 minutes, the legs 20. The chicken out to cool; the liquor saved (the soup's or the noodle bowl's own dividend). Checkpoint — the thigh or breast at its thickest point reads 74 °C, and the cooled meat tears to clean, juicy shreds — the fibres separating under the fingers' pull, the poach's own proof.

Step 2. The sauce's balance and the assembly. The loosened sesame paste whisked with the vinegar, sugar, soy, garlic, salt and Sichuan pepper, then the chilli oil stirred in last (the red streaking the tan — the sauce poured, not stirred dead). The cucumber's julienne laid as the bed, the chicken's shreds piled over, and the sauce spooned across everything at the table's moment. Checkpoint — the tasting spoon before the pour: the sauce must run sweet, sour, nutty and warming in one stride, the sugar and vinegar in open argument with the sesame's fat — a flat sauce wants more sugar or more vinegar, never more salt alone. Chef’s Note — the authentic bang bang step — the wooden mallet or the rolling pin's banging of the cooked meat before the hand-tearing — is not theatre: the pounding breaks the fibres at angles the knife cannot, and the rough-shredded surface grips the sesame sauce where a clean knife-cut runs it off. Beat the cooled chicken inside a food bag, then tear by hand to 5 mm shreds. The restaurant trick is a two-minute step; the home method is the same pin you roll pastry with.