Bobo Chicken

A Sichuan street food that originated in Leshan (Jiazhou) and later became famous in Chengdu, with the modern skewer-in-cold-broth format emerged in Leshan/Qianwei in the mid-1980s (c. 1985) — the name 'bobo' (钵钵) refers to the clay pot it's traditionally sold from, hawked door-to-door. The technique sits between cold-poached chicken (kou shui ji) and hot pot — pre-cooked ingredients held cold but in seasoned oil, eaten at room temperature.

Chengdu street food; the modern skewer-in-cold-oil format settled in the 1990s. The name 钵钵 is the clay pot it was hawked door-to-door in. Sits between cold-poached chicken and hot pot — pre-cooked, held cold in seasoned oil.

A clay or porcelain pot full of cold red oil, with skewered raw-then-poached ingredients submerged in it — chicken pieces, tofu skin, cucumber, mushroom, kelp, lotus root, seaweed knots. Eat by pulling skewers out one at a time. The oil is sesame-and-chili based, lightly numbed, and the ingredients are drinking it the whole time you eat. A street snack that's also a meal.

The oil is cooked once, used cold. Sesame oil and rapeseed oil are heated with star anise, peppercorn, ginger, scallion, then steeped with chili powder; cooled, that infused oil becomes the holding bath. Each ingredient is poached separately to its own doneness — chicken in salted broth, vegetables blanched — then skewered and dropped in. Pre-mixing everything kills texture; the cold oil holds without further cooking.