Philippine La Zi Ji (Spicy Chicken) recipe

I would like to share a recipe I developed from constant experimentation with chicken last year when the price of pork and beef were sky-high I started looking for other methods to cook chicken. I came across this recipe from one of my favorite Youtubers, Chinese Cooking Demystified, and tried to cater it to the Pinoy taste.

It's called the Guizhou La Zi Ji (贵州辣子鸡) or Spicy Chicken. I tried to replicate the original recipe but since our choice of spices here in the Philippines is limited, I used what I could find. By the way, I have already tried a La Zi Ji before when one of our Chinese students from work brought it to the office for our lunch. According to him, he doesn't know what to call it since most of the spices he used were based here, but if it was made in China, it could have been spicier. But I asked him how to make it and surprisingly, it was similar to the recipe I posted above so now let's get to cooking!

What you will need:

• 400g chicken (adobo cut)

• 1 can mushrooms

• 1 medium onion (sliced)

• 1 thumb ginger (julienned)

• 4 cloves garlic (roughly chopped)

• 2pcs red bell peppers (diced)

• 2pcs green chili (pansigang) (sliced)

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 tsp sugar

• 1 tbsp cooking wine

• 1 tbsp Lao Gan Ma chili paste

• 1 tbsp light soy sauce

• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce

• 2 tsp vinegar

• 1/2 cup cashew nuts (optional)

• 1/4 cup water

• 1/2 cup cooking oil

Instructions:

1. First of all, chop and prepare all your spices on a plate. Make a spice o'clock to make it easier for you to know which ingredient goes into the wok first. I learned this technique from the Youtube channel School of Wok to help you get organized in cooking so the other spices won't get burned. Mine goes counterclockwise starting from the ginger (7 o'clock) because ginger has a higher heat tolerance than the rest of the other spices. So the correct order for this is ginger-onions-garlic-bell peppers-green chili-leeks.

The Spice O'Clock

2. Now heat up your wok and cooking oil on medium heat and dunk your chickens in. We didn't wait for it to heat up because we're trying to cook the chicken in the oil without browning it too much. If we waited for the oil to properly heat up, the chicken would have developed excessive browning from the stir frying we're doing later. It should take around 10 minutes.

Put the chickens in while the oil is cold

Remove from heat when it's browned

3. Remove the excess oil and leave some for the mushrooms. Cooking mushrooms don't take too long to cook. Around three minutes over medium heat is fine then remove it from heat.

Make short work of the mushrooms

4. Now that you're done with the proteins, now it's time for the spices. Go in with ginger first, cook for one minute, then onions, a minute of cooking again, then garlic and cook until fragrant.

5. Next goes the Lao Gan Ma chili paste. Do not skip this ingredient! This is the actual star of the dish because it gives it that umami, spicy flavor as well as the red color. I bought that chili paste in a nearby Chinese grocery for just Php100.

The famous Lao Gan Ma Chili Paste

This is what it should look like with the chili paste

6. Now turn the heat to high and put the chicken and the mushroom back into the wok, add in the cooking wine and stir fry continuously for three minutes.

7. After three minutes, add in the bell pepper, green chili, salt, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, vinegar, and water then cover for five minutes.

8. You're in the last phase of the cooking! Taste the sauce, it should taste savoury, slightly salty and spicy, add in the leeks and sugar then mix. Taste it the sauce again and it should be all perfectly balanced now.

9. If you have the nuts or other green vegetables, now is the perfect time to add in and cover for another three minutes. Remove from heat and serve!

You add the leeks last to give it a green color

I can eat this all day

Other things to note:

It doesn't taste quite like the original La Zi Ji but this dish has an umami bomb that explodes in your mouth that you can't stop eating it. One of these days I think I'll visit Chinatown to buy some Chinese chilies to have some authenticity. Special thanks to Jin, my Chinese friend for introducing me to this dish! Whenever I eat adobo or afritada, I am reminded of how limited Philippine cuisine is in terms of flavor because our Asian neighbors have the best food! Probably because of how we neglect agriculture here in the country.

If you can't find the Lao Gan Ma chili paste in groceries, try Shopee or Lazada. It's an absolute necessity if you're a home cook because that sauce is so versatile in its application. Sometimes I use it in noodles, pasta, dimsum, and other braised dishes. The umami kick you get from it is irreplaceable and you'll keep coming back for it.

Just search Lao Gan Ma