Chicken & broccoli Sichuan noodles

I'm very fortunate in that I have a Chinese supermarket, Chi-Yip, a short drive from home.

I love just taking a trip and wandering around and my favourite aisle has to be the one with all the condiments and sauces!

I've tried hundreds of types of chilli sauce and chilli oil, but on my last visit, this Amoy Sichuan Mala sauce caught my eye, and I threw it in the basket.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a bit weird with sauces: the moment I get home, I'll crack it open and try it neat with a teaspoon, it just has to be sampled. When I did that with this sauce, I just knew it was going to be a killer ingredient in whatever it went into.

It's got a deep, savoury umami'ness to it, but the numbing sensation and flavour of the Sichuan peppercorns is noticeable and quite forward (in a good way). It has a modest heat to it too, not fierce, but not weak either. It's also a luscious deep red / brown colour.

I actually ended up on a YouTube rabbit hole about what málà meant, and it's two part:

Ma means numbing, and La means spicy.

If you get chance - jump on YouTube search "mala recipe" or "mala dishes" - everything looks like heaven (to me!). I even came across several videos which show how to make your own authentic mala sauce - something I do plan on doing one day.

Anyway, I decided to throw a dish together that combined chicken, tenderstem broccoli and noodles together in a spicy Sichuan mala style sauce, and I have to say, the result was excellent.

The sauce clings to the noodles, it's quite a fiercely spicy dish due to the extra birdseye chillies (reduce or omit them if you want this milder), the chicken is soft due to the velvetisation process, and there's a nice fresh crunch from the tenderstem broccoli.

If you give this a shot, I hope you enjoy it.

I'll be coming back to this one for sure and it really doesn't take long to throw together either.