When the dish arrives at the table, the first reaction is almost always the same: "Where's the chicken?" What you see is a mountain of dark red dried chilies, Sichuan pepper, garlic, and scallions. Under that mountain, if you search with chopsticks, you'll find crispy chicken chunks. The volumetric ratio is approximately three parts chilies to one part chicken. That's La Zi Ji (辣子鸡). Pollo Mala. The dish that Gele Mountain in Chongqing gave to the world.
Gele Shan (歌乐山) is a mountain on the outskirts of western Chongqing, a place of rest and recreation. In the 90s, with Chongqing's economic development, the area became a weekend gastronomic destination. It was in the roadside restaurants on the hillside where La Zi Ji reached its definitive form: dry-fried chicken chunks covered in toasted dried chilies, without sauce, without broth. The chili-to-chicken ratio of 3 to 1 by volume. Queues reached several hours. The dish spread throughout China.
The chicken—thighs and drumsticks with bone, cut into small pieces—is marinated in salt, ginger, garlic, and rice wine. Then it's deep-fried in abundant oil at high temperature until crispy on the outside. First frying. In the same oil, the whole dried chilies are fried until they start to darken—that point just before burning where they release all their essential oils. The Sichuan pepper, sliced garlic, and ginger go in. Then the chicken returns to the wok. Everything is stir-fried together over high heat. Second cooking.
The honest answer is: it depends. The chilies aren't decoration—they're part of the dish. Chongqing cooks consider them "edible seasoning": you can bite them to extract their flavor, chew them if you have high tolerance, or simply leave them after they've infused the chicken and oil with flavor.
La Zi Ji is spicy. The amount of chilies isn't aesthetic. They have capsaicin. The Sichuan pepper adds the mala. At HAMMER we can adjust slightly if warned when ordering. But the dish without a certain intensity loses its reason for being.
We use fresh chicken, never frozen. The chilies are imported: erjingtiao and chaotian, the two classic Sichuan varieties, with different flavor profiles that complement each other. The Sichuan pepper is fresh, dry-roasted before service.
The amount of chilies is deliberately generous. Not to the point where you can't find the chicken—but to the point where you have to search. That search is part of the dish. That small reward is part of why people in Chongqing queued for two hours. It's on our menu, in Madrid and Barcelona. For the brave. And for those who want to be.
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