I got two words for you. Saliva. Chicken.

Okay that might’ve conjured some sort of disturbing image in your head. Perhaps one of a soggy, featherless chicken covered in thick, translucent slime, a scene that probably belongs more in an Alien movie rather than on a food blog. But then again, I like my weird foods so maybe this isn’t too out of place…

But before you think I’m a right weirdo, saliva chicken is the name for an actual, real-life dish. The name is a literal translation of its Chinese name, 口水鸡. Though it might seem like a downright awful name, just thinking about this dish causes me to salivate profusely, so in a strange way I suppose the name is apt.

The dish itself is native to the Sichuan region of China, and consists of two main elements – cold cuts of chicken, drenched in a spicy, numbing Sichuan chilli oil-sauce. I know this doesn’t sound entirely appealing yet, but bear with me, I’ll warm you up to it!

First, let’s address the chicken. Serving chicken cold might be a real weird concept to the Western world (unlike the idiomatic cold turkey), but like all things in cooking, there’s a reason for this. We typically envisage chicken served warm/hot as having two textures – crispy/fatty skin and juicy meat. For this Sichuan chicken dish though, right after its cooked through in a pot of water/broth, it’s immediately plunged into a freezing ice bath. This process tightens up the skin and causes the fat underneath to get all gooey and gelatinous, creating a third textural element. So you get three very complementary textures in a simple piece of chicken – taut, snappy skin, a gelatinous fat layer, and super succulent meat!

More remarkable than the chicken itself though, is the sauce. Now I’m not the biggest fan of spicy foods, nor can I tolerate it much (embarrassing to admit as a Malaysian, I know), but the key spice in this sauce is a sure cause for addiction. To me, it’s the craziest, most mind-blowing spice of all – Sichuan peppercorns.

Most peppers have some sort of spicy kick to it, whether it’s peppercorns or chilli peppers like chipotle, bird’s eye chilli, or the Carolina Reaper *heavy breathing*. The worst peppers take you through a series of hellish trails that goes something like this: tongue-tickling spicy –> head-scratchy spicy –> need-cold-milk spicy –> help-me-I’m-crying spicy –> I-can’t-feel-my-face spicy.

The Sichuan pepper though, fast-tracks you to the final level in one fell swoop, but not in the way you might expect. Instead of being typically fire-burning spicy, they’re all about the tingly, tongue-numbing sensation of a level 5 spiciness, but with almost none of the heat. It sounds real weird, but as someone who can’t handle much heat, I’m demonically addicted to these peppers.

Here’s a science-y segue! For the chemistry nerds out there (myself included), the compound that causes this numbing sensation is hydroxy-α-sanshool. It’s said to excite certain ultra-sensitive touch receptors in our mouths, causing a mechanical reaction (as opposed to a chemical one), which explains why we feel a tingling, pins-and-needles sorta feeling after eating any ma-la (麻辣; literally numbing-spicy) food. Interesting, no?

In some ways then, the numbing buzz you get from Sichuan pepper is comparable to the buzz you’d get from alcohol or drugs. Well, a really tame, class-D drug at that, for real tame people like me who prefer a quiet night in with a good book over a wild, bumpin night out. (Just let me indulging in my pretend-drug-taking bad-assery k.)

So for a perfectly legal drug hit, order saliva chicken the next time you’re at a Sichuanese restaurant. Or better yet, make you own at home, where you can tweak the level of numbing-spiciness to your liking. Personally, I like mine extra numbing, but with minimal heat. (The recipe below reflects this.) To get your hand on some quality Sichuan peppercorns, try your local specialty spice store as supermarkets/grocers don’t usually stock them. For those in Malaysia though, if you can’t get them, let me know as I recently received a large pack all the way from Taiwan! (Thanks Asya!) I’m just the dealer though yeah, and I’m not liable for your inevitable addiction…