Recipes: Szechuan pepper chicken with tomato chilli jam

Everyone loves finger food on a stick. These dinky chicken bites are sure to disappear in seconds

• 3 boneless and skinless chicken breasts
• 1 tsp Szechuan peppers
• ½ tsp sea salt
• 2 tbsp sesame oil , plus a little extra for frying

Tomato chilli jam

• 250g ripe tomatoes , roughly chopped
• 2 thumb-sized red chillies , seeded and roughly chopped
• 2 garlic cloves , peeled
• 30g raisins
• 2cm piece ginger , peeled and roughly chopped
• 150g soft brown sugar
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 50ml red wine vinega

  

  1. For the jam, process the tomatoes, chilli, garlic, raisins and ginger to a purée. Pour into a pan, add the sugar, fish sauce and vinegar. Simmer for 30 minutes until thick. Cool.
  2. Cut the chicken into 3-4cm pieces. Grind the Szechuan pepper and salt coarsely - you can do it in a pepper mill. Add to the chicken with the sesame oil and mix.
  3. Heat a non-stick pan with a little sesame oil until very hot. Sear the chicken on all sides until cooked through.
  4. Push a skewer into each piece. Serve with chilli jam.

  Get Ahead

  Make the chilli jam the day before.

  Per serving

  63 kcalories, protein 4,3g, carbohydrate 7,4g, fat 2 g, saturated fat 0,3g, fibre 0,1g, salt 0,25 g