I absolutely love Asian cooking and trawl the Asian supermarkets for weird and wonderful ingredients; one of the best I have come across is  called Raan Thai, and they offer a fantastic delivery service!

This recipe is from the Szechuan region of china and is often spicier than any other region, they typically use small dried chillies, if you have these then soak them until soft and de-seed, if you don’t have any just use crushed red chilli flakes.

Serves 2

Ingredients

400g Chicken thighs, trimmed of any fat and cut into bite size pieces

½ tsp. Szechuan peppercorns

1 tsp. sugar

1 tbsp. light soy sauce

1 tbsp. Chinese rice wine

1 tsp. cornflour

2 tbsp. vegetable oil

1 garlic clove, crushed

80g baby corn

3 spring onions, sliced (save a few to garnish)

½-1 tsp. crushed chilli flakes to taste or 4 small dried red chilli’s

2 tbsp. yellow bean sauce or hoi sin

3 tbsp. water

How to Make it….

• Dry fry the Szechuan peppercorns in a hot wok or large frying pan until they release their fragrance then crush in a Pestle and Mortar.
• Add the crushed peppercorns to a bowl with the sugar, soy sauce, rice wine and cornflour; add the chicken pieces and stir to coat the chicken, leave to marinate for 20 minutes.
• When ready to cook, heat the wok or frying pan on a high heat  and add 1 tbsp. of vegetable oil. Using a slotted spoon remove the chicken from the marinade and add it to the Wok, stir fry for 1-2 minutes until lightly browned, remove and set aside for a minute.
• Turn down the heat slightly and add a little more oil to the wok,  add the garlic, baby corn, ¾ of the spring onions, chilli flakes, yellow bean or hoi sin sauce and stir- fry for 1 minute.
• Add the chicken back into the wok along with the remainder of the marinade and 3 tbsp. of water, stir and turn the heat down a little. Cover with the lid and cook for 5-6 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.
• Before serving, sprinkle with the remaining spring onions and serve with rice.

Enjoy!