page_title: Chongqing
section_title: Cuisine
hierarchical_section_title: Chongqing / Culture / Cuisine
caption_attribution_description: Chicken with Chiles 300 gram chickenbreast cut into 2 cm cubes. Marinate for 30 minutes in mixture of: 2 t shaoxing ricewine 1 t light soysauce 1 t dark soysauce � t salt Deepfry in very hot peanutoil for about 4-5 minutes until cooked through, golden brown and a little crispy on the outside. Drain well and set aside. Heat 3 T oil (I used sichuanpepper oil) in wok over a moderate flame and add 2 cloves garlic, sliced 4 cm ginger, sliced Stirfry until fragrant and just taking color. Then add 50 gr dried chiles 1 T sichuan peppercorns And stirfry for 10-20 seconds until the oil is spicy and fragrant. Take grate care not to burn the chiles. Add the fried chicken and 2 spring onions, cut into 4 cm pieces 2 t sugar 1 t salt Stirl well so that the chicken is coated with the fragrand oil. Finally, remove from the heat and add 2 t sesame oil. This was the first time I tried to recreate this dish. It's been 6 years since I had it. And actually, I didn't eat it very often then, as in China they use chopped chicken. So you have little pieces of chicken with bones, fat and skin. And that's too much for me. Although there was this little restaurant where they made it with chickenbreast. And so does Fuchsia Dunlop. The recipe tells you to deepfry the chicken and I did. But I wasn't too happy with that. I think the chicken was overdone and I don't think I have the skills to prevent that in future. So next time I will just stirfry the chicken. Maybe even add some cornstarch or eggwhite for the velvety texture. Come to think of it, the deepfrying is probably necessary when you do use the pieces of chicken including bones, fat and skin. But when you use chickenbreast, there is no need. And maybe, just maybe, I will leave out all the chillies. I know this is so very typical for this dish, but the purpose it to flavour the oil. So I can just as well use the sichuan-chili-oil for this..... Which I already did this time. I only added the extra chiles and sichuanpeppercorns for decoration, hihi. And extra flavour, of course. It was hot. What I did eat a lot, while I was in Beijing, was this dish, but with fried green beans instead of chicken. That was brilliant too. From&#160;: Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop Update! My third attempt was much better. See the result and recipe here: www.flickr.com/photos/fotoosvanrobin/2866923293/
context_page_description: Chongqing, formerly romanized as Chungking, is a megacity in southwest China. Administratively, it is one of the four municipalities under the direct administration of central government of the People's Republic of China, and the only such municipality located far away from the coast. The municipality of Chongqing, which is around the size of Austria, includes the city of Chongqing and various non-connected cities. As the Chongqing municipality government directly administers the city of Chongqing, as well as rural counties, and other cities not connected to the city of Chongqing, Chongqing municipality can technically claim to be the largest city proper in the world, even though this is due to a classification technicality and not because it is actually the world's largest urban area.
  Chongqing was a municipality during the Republic of China administration, within the Sichuan Province. It served as its wartime capital during the Second Sino-Japanese War, being one of the world's anti-fascist command centers. The current municipality was separated from Sichuan province on 14 March 1997 to help develop the central and western parts of China.
context_section_description: Chongqing food is part of Sichuan cuisine. Chongqing is known for its spicy food. Its food is normally considered numbing because of the use of Sichuan pepper, also known as Sichuan peppercorn, containing hydroxy alpha sanshool. Chongqing's city centre has many restaurants and food stalls where meals often cost less than RMB10. Local specialties here include dumplings and pickled vegetables and, different from many other Chinese cuisines, Chongqing dishes are suitable for the solo diner as they are often served in small individual sized portions. Among the delicacies and local specialties are these dishes:
  Chongqing hot pot (Huoguo) – Chongqing's local culinary specialty which was originally from Northern China. Tables in hot pot restaurants usually have a central pot, where food ordered by the customers is boiled in a spicy broth, items such as beef, pork, tripe, kidney slices, pork aorta and goose intestine are often consumed.
  Chongqing Xiao Mian – a common lamian noodle dish tossed with chili oil and rich mixtures of spices and ingredients
  Jiangtuan fish – since Chongqing is located along Jialing River, visitors have a good opportunity to sample varieties of aquatic products. Among them, is a fish local to the region, Jiangtuan fish: Hypophthalmichthys nobilis although more commonly known as bighead carp. The fish is often served steamed or baked.
  Suan La Fen (Sour and Spicy Sweet-Potato Noodles) – Thick, transparent noodles of rubbery texture in a spicy vinegar soup.
  Lazi Ji (Spicy Chicken) – A stir-fried dish consists of marinated then deep-fried pieces of chicken, dried Sichuan chilli peppers, Sichuan peppers, garlic, and ginger, originated near Geleshan in Chongqing.
  Quanshui Ji (Spring Water Chicken) – Quanshui Ji is cooked with the natural spring water in the Southern Mountain of Chongqing.
  Pork leg cooked with rock sugar – A common household dish of the Chongqing people, the finished dish, known as red in colour and tender in taste, has been described as having strong and sweet aftertaste.
  Qianzhang (skimmed soy bean cream) – Qianzhang is the cream skimmed from soybean milk. In order to create this, several steps must be followed very carefully. First, soybeans are soaked in water, ground, strained, boiled, restrained several times and spread over gauze until delicate, snow-white cream is formed. The paste can also be hardened, cut into slivers and seasoned with sesame oil, garlic and chili oil. Another variation is to bake the cream and fry it with bacon, which is described as soft and sweet.
caption: Laziji is famous for its crispy texture
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