Hacked Chicken with Hot Oil & Browned Szechuan Peppercorns


6 cloves garlic
1/4 cup coriander roots and stems
6 tablespoons sesame paste
4 tablespoons thin soy sauce
3 tablespoons shao hsing
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons sesame oil
4 teaspoons rice vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons hot chili oil
2 scallions, green only, chopped
1/2 teaspoon Szechuan peppercorns
2 whole chicken breasts
In a mortar and pestle (or small food processor) puree the garlic and coriander. Transfer mixture to a bowl and add the sesame paste, soy sauce, shao hsing, honey, sesame oil, rice vinegar, chili oil, and scallions and mix together. Brown the Szechuan peppercorns in a dry castiron skillet over low heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Grind them, then sieve them and add to the bowl with the sauce.

Boil the chicken breasts in lightly salted water for 67 minutes, until just past pink. Refresh them under cold water. When cool, skin and bone them. Pull apart the meat into strips. Arrange meat on a serving plate. Pour over sauce and serve. Yield: 6 appetizer servings

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Though I am different from you,
We were born involved in one another.

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.

Complete surrender should not just come at moments in which one faces overwhelming odds, but in the calm when it seems one is personally in complete control of one's life.