Mouthwatering Chicken (Kou Shui Ji)

Name: Mouthwatering Chicken (Kou Shui Ji)
Total time: 1 h
Yield: Serves 2–3 as a starter
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 500 g bone-in chicken legs (or 400 g breast, the less forgiving clock); 1 tbsp (15 ml) Shaoxing wine, 5 slices ginger, 2 spring onions; Water to cover, at the bare shiver; 3 tbsp (45 ml) chilli oil, with its full sediment; 1½ tbsp (20 g) sesame paste or smooth peanut butter, loosened with 1 tbsp (15 ml) hot water; 2 cloves garlic, grated to a paste with ½ tsp (2 g) salt (the garlic's honest weight — the sauce's backbone); 1 tbsp (15 ml) Chinkiang black vinegar, 1 tbsp (15 ml) light soy; 1 tbsp (15 g) sugar, ½ tsp (2 g) ground Sichuan pepper; 2 tbsp (30 ml) the poaching liquid (the sauce's own loosener); 150 g cucumber, seeded and julienned; 2 spring onions, sliced; a scatter of toasted sesame seeds and the coriander's handful

Chinese · Medium · Serves 2–3 as a starter

The Sichuan cold table's most seductive argument and the red-oil dressing's own showcase: tender poached chicken shredded over the cucumber's cool bed, cloaked in the garlic-heavy chilli-oil sauce whose very name — kou shui ji, "saliva chicken" — confesses the dish's effect. The technique shares the cold-poach doctrine with the bang bang chicken's record; the distinction is the sauce's register: where the bang bang runs the sesame paste's nutty calm, the kou shui runs the raw garlic and the red oil's seductive fire.

Quantities live in the recipe card.

The chicken and its poach

The sauce (the dish's whole identity)

the sauce's backbone)

The bed and the finish

- The cold poach's doctrine (the bang bang record's shared law): the chicken covered with the cold water and the aromatics, brought to the barest shiver, held 2 minutes, then the lid on and the heat off — the legs' 15-minute rest in the cooling liquor (the breast's 10), the residual heat's gentle finish the tender flesh's whole argument. The boiling start is the rubber's own cause. - The sauce's order: the sesame paste loosened first with the hot water, then the garlic paste, chilli oil, vinegar, soy, sugar and Sichuan pepper whisked in — the poaching liquid's splash last, at the service's moment, to the sauce's pouring nudge.

Step 1. The poach, rest and shred. The chicken poached by the cold-start doctrine and rested in the liquor to the thigh's 74 °C — then cooled in the liquor's own patience (the ice bath's shocking firmness the lesser argument), the skin's film left on, and the flesh torn to the rough shreds the fingers' pull finds naturally. Checkpoint — the cooled flesh shreds to the juicy fibres' lengths with no dry thread at the bone's edge — the poach's proof — and the liquor saved: the sauce's loosener and the soup's dividend both.

Step 2. The sauce's cloak and the service. The cucumber's julienne laid to the plate's bed, the shredded chicken piled over, and the sauce poured across in the generous cloak — the spring onion, sesame seeds and coriander scattered at the last — the dish served at the room's cool, the sauce's fire the cold flesh's own argument. Checkpoint — the first chopstick's lift: the cold flesh's silk carrying the sauce's layered seduction — the chilli's warm fire, the raw garlic's pungent backbone, the sesame's roundness and the vinegar's cut, the Sichuan pepper's tingle arriving last — the "saliva" name's own confession at the first bite, and the cucumber's cool snap the reset between. Chef’s Note — the kou shui ji's distinction from its bang bang cousin is the sauce's argument and the record's own honest law: the bang bang chicken's sesame paste runs the sauce's majority (the nutty calm, the milder garlic), the kou shui ji's raw garlic and chilli oil take the same cold poach's flesh to the seductive extreme — the garlic grated to a paste with the salt (the fibres' argument ground away, the paste's emulsion the sauce's backbone) rather than minced, and the garlic's weight held honest at the full two cloves for the record's half-bird. The same poached flesh runs both sauces; the table's own dial decides the register.