Long story short.. daughter likes a particular dish from a Chinese restaurant that is listed as "chicken with chilli and garlic" !! its mostly meat with a redish half clear brown sauce with a few bits of chilli/garlic and possibly peppers in there.

On holiday we went to another restaurant and she asked and they said they would get the chef to add more garlic to the "Szechuan Chicken" recipe.

I'm thinking of making it for them at some point but not sure whats in there as I've never tried it ! (good start when trying to recreate something ! lol)

I'm wondering if it will be mainly Szechuan pepper for the heat or oil ?.. peppers ?... the rest I can guess (soy sauce, seasame oil, maybe fish sauce and something a little sour like rice wine of sherry ? salt, pepper and cornflour.. I'm not sure if anything like star anise went in due to not tasting it..)

anyone any ideas ?

Thanks

Steve

can't help here, but it reminds me of Indian restaurants that boast they can prepare anything for you. Just ask for a dosa or idli or dhokla or gol gappas.

Chinese restaurants work on the same 'matrix'menu' idea as Indian restaurants, that is they have a few 'stock' ingredients, usually peculiar to that outlet, so you could be getting anything. It might be heavy with msg, maybe?

Look on this blog to see if you can find what you are looking for, sunflower is a good Chinese cook; http://sunflower-recipes.blogspot.com/search/label/1a.%20Szechuan

I had a look at some of the recipes and ingredients and it more or less said what I had thought was about right... gave it a go and wasn't far off.. Daughter had it and said it wanted more garlic as the original is heavy on it (so I doubled from 4 cloves to 8 !..)

http://postimage.org/image/18ovb3s90/

Steve

Hi,

Watch out with the Szechuan pepper if using as it can give a gritty texture to the food. Maybe worth grinding in a coffee grinder before adding. It is worth using though as it gives a light, almost numbing citrus note to the dish!

Cheers

James.