While reading the news about the eruption of Aso-san (on which I stood exactly three years ago), I got a bit sentimental, reminiscing our time in Asia.
Then, I spend a great amount of time traveling to Xinjiang, northwestern China. While the visits were of course professional, I enjoyed the local cuisine a lot - next to the ubiquitous lamb skewers especially a dish called Da Pan Ji (大盘鸡, or big plate chicken), an ultrasavoury chicken stew with plenty of Sichuan pepper and other spices, served usually with hand-pulled laghman noodles (for which a commercial product had to fill in). That’s what I wanted - no: needed - for tonight …
I was a huge success. The flavors were there, the smell, the consistency of the meat (even though I used thigh off the bone). And most importantly my family liked it. It‘ll make a return soon …
