A cold Sichuan plate of poached rabbit cut into small cubes and tossed in red chili oil with crushed peanuts. Unlike the dry-fried cold-eaten rabbit, this version keeps the meat tender and juicy: the rabbit is gently boiled, cooled, diced on the bone, and dressed in red oil, sweet soy, garlic and Sichuan peppercorn, with roasted peanuts and scallion for crunch. It eats cool, springy and richly mala — proof of Sichuan's long habit of eating rabbit, which the province consumes more of than anywhere else in China.
Rabbit is a defining Sichuan meat: the province eats by far the most rabbit in China, and the bird-sized carcass turns up across the cold-dish, dry-fried and red-braised repertoires. The cold tossed-rabbit plate belongs to the same hong-you (red-oil) cold-dish family as the famous offal and white-meat plates of Chengdu, and it shares the chili-and-peppercorn dressing of guaiwei rabbit and Zigong's cold-eaten rabbit while keeping the meat moist rather than dried. No single founding cook or date attaches to it; it is documented as a common household and cold-counter dish — a thrifty, everyday way to dress poached rabbit — and is especially associated with Chengdu's cold-plate culture.
The cubes are small and bone-in, cut cool so the meat stays firm and springy, juicier and more tender than the dried cold-eaten style. The red oil leads — toasted-chili fragrance and a clean heat — then a rounded sweetness from the re-cooked soy, then the slow numbing climb of Sichuan peppercorn. Roasted peanuts give a crisp, nutty crunch against the springy meat, and scallion and cilantro lift it green. The plate is rich and mala but not heavy, eaten cold as drinking food, picked up cube by cube.
Two things make the dish: a gentle poach and a balanced red-oil dressing. Rabbit is very lean and turns dry and stringy if hard-boiled, so it is started in cold water with ginger, scallion and wine, the scum skimmed, then held at a bare simmer and finished off-heat under the lid — carry-over heat sets the lean muscle gently and keeps it juicy. A cold plunge firms it for cleaner dicing; cutting it cold and small lets the dressing coat every face. The dressing is the Sichuan cold-dish base: red chili oil (红油) for heat and aroma, re-cooked sweet soy (复制酱油) — soy reduced with sugar and spices — for a rounded salty-sweet body, raw mashed garlic, and ground Sichuan peppercorn whose hydroxy-alpha-sanshool gives the tingling numbness. Peanuts are roasted and crushed for textural contrast and added late so they stay crisp rather than soften in the oil.
Variations
The dressing can run the guaiwei ("strange-flavor") route — sesame paste added for a nutty body and all seven tastes balanced — or stay a straight red-oil mala. Some cooks fold in cucumber, celery or fried peanuts in bulk; a hotter style uses pickled wild chili. This moist tossed plate must not be confused with Zigong cold-eaten rabbit, which is dry-fried until the meat is dehydrated and chewy and keeps for days, nor with spiced rabbit heads — here the rabbit stays tender and juicy. Boneless versions are diced from the leg and saddle; bone-in chopped versions are common at home.
On the Palate
Where Diced Rabbit in Chili sits in the Chinese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
6 steps · 30 min active + 40 min waiting
- 110 min
Put a whole rabbit or rabbit legs into cold water with ginger, scallion and a splash of Shaoxing wine; bring up and skim off the scum.
- 225 min
Drop to a bare simmer for about 15 minutes, then kill the heat and let it steep under the lid until just cooked through.
Watch outDrop to a bare simmer, then kill the heat and let it steep under the lid — rabbit's lean and hard-boiling turns it dry and stringy; carry-over heat keeps it juicy.
- 38 min
Lift out and plunge into cold water to firm the meat; drain, then chop bone-in into small cubes or dice the boneless meat.
- 46 min
Roast peanuts until golden and lightly crush; slice scallion and chop garlic.
- 54 min
Mix the dressing: red chili oil, re-cooked sweet soy, mashed garlic, ground Sichuan peppercorn and a little sesame oil.
Watch outThe dressing lives or dies on the re-cooked sweet soy plus red chili oil — that soy reduced with sugar and spice is the Sichuan cold-dish backbone.
- 63 min
Toss the cold rabbit with the dressing, fold in most of the peanuts, then scatter the rest with scallion and cilantro on top and serve cold.
