A cold Sichuan chicken plate built on the jiaoma ("pepper-numb") flavor type. A whole bird or leg is gently poached, cooled, and chopped or torn, then dressed in a green sauce of fresh green Sichuan peppercorns and scallion greens pounded together with sesame oil, soy, and stock. Unlike the red-oil cold chickens, jiaoma carries no chili: the heat is replaced by a clean, citrusy numbing tingle and a strong green-onion fragrance, salty and faintly savory-sweet. The sauce is grass-green, the chicken cool and tender.
Jiaoma ("pepper-numb") is one of the classic compound flavor types of the Sichuan canon, defined by the pairing of Sichuan peppercorn with scallion and sesame oil and the deliberate absence of chili — numbing and aromatic rather than hot. The textbook form pounds fresh green peppercorns together with the green tops of scallions into a fine paste, so the sauce comes out green; an older form uses dried red peppercorns ground fine and is darker. The flavor type carries cold poached chicken, rabbit, and offal alike, and the chicken version is its best-known plate, common across Sichuan and especially associated with the lighter cold-dish cooking of Chengdu and Leshan. No single founding cook or date is recorded; it is documented as a standard household and restaurant cold dish rather than one shop's invention.
The chicken comes cold, the skin set to a faint gel, the flesh firm and springy rather than soft. The sauce is the event: a wave of green-scallion and sesame fragrance arrives first, then the salty-savory base, and last the numbing tingle of green peppercorn climbs the tongue and settles on the lips, citrusy and cool, buzzing without burning. Because there is no chili, the dish reads bright and herbaceous, not fiery — the rare Sichuan cold plate where you feel the ma with no la behind it.
Two things make the dish: a gentle poach and a pounded green sauce. The bird 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; a hard boil over-contracts the muscle proteins and squeezes out moisture, leaving the meat dry, while a quiet simmer plus carry-over steeping sets the proteins gently so the flesh stays juicy. A cold plunge afterward firms the skin and the surface so the sauce clings. The sauce depends on pounding, not chopping: crushing fresh green peppercorns and scallion greens together in a mortar ruptures the cells and releases the peppercorn's aromatic oils and hydroxy-alpha-sanshool — the compound behind the tingling numbness, which acts on the skin's touch nerves so the "ma" is felt as a fine buzzing rather than tasted. Sesame oil carries the volatile aromatics and rounds the sauce; using fresh green peppercorns rather than dried keeps both the color green and the citrus note bright.
Variations
Two camps split on the peppercorn. The green-peppercorn school pounds fresh green Sichuan pepper with scallion for a grass-green, citrus-bright sauce — the style now most associated with the dish; the red-peppercorn school grinds dried peppercorn fine for a darker, earthier numbness. Xinjiang's well-known da-pan jiaoma chicken is a separate large-plate dish and should not be confused with the Sichuan cold plate. The same jiaoma sauce also dresses cold rabbit and poached offal; the chicken comes either chopped on the bone or hand-torn boneless, often laid over shredded cucumber or scallion.
On the Palate
Where Jiaoma Chicken sits in the Chinese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
6 steps · 30 min active + 1 hour waiting
- 110 min
Put a whole chicken or leg 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 10 minutes, then kill the heat and let the bird steep under the lid until just cooked through, about 20 minutes.
Watch outDrop to a bare simmer, then finish off the heat under the lid — a hard boil squeezes the meat dry, a quiet steep keeps it juicy.
- 38 min
Lift out and plunge into ice water to firm the skin; drain, then chop on the bone or tear boneless and arrange on a plate.
- 45 min
In a mortar, pound fresh green Sichuan peppercorns with the green tops of scallions into a fine green paste.
Watch outPound the peppercorns and scallion, don't chop — crushing bursts the cells and releases the numbing aroma a knife can't.
- 55 min
Loosen the paste with sesame oil, then stir in light soy, a little sugar and a few spoons of the cooled poaching stock to a pourable green sauce.
- 62 min
Spoon the jiaoma sauce over the cold chicken just before serving so the aromatics stay fresh.
