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No. 39ChineseChicken

Green Peppercorn Chicken, T-Chow Style

This one is for my wife Diana.

John DrummondFor Diana

An oval white plate of silky pale chicken thigh slices in a thin glaze with whole green peppercorns, spring onion, garlic and ginger, on a bed of crisp fried Thai basil, with a bowl of jasmine rice, a dish of green peppercorns and chopsticks on a dark stone bench
Prep20min
Cook10min
All up30min
Serves4
LevelEasy

Mise en place

What you need

Tick each one off as it goes in.

Chicken

Peppercorns and aromatics

Glaze

Wok and basil

To serve

Makes 4 serves

This one is for my wife Diana -- this is from a local Adelaide restaurant in chinatown. Seems she has an AI knock off of the recipe.

The restaurant is T-Chow on Moonta Street, a Chiu Chow kitchen, and Green Peppercorn Chicken is one of its signatures. Their recipe isn't published, so this is not theirs. It is Diana's AI copy, reworked in October 2026 to get as close to the plate she loves as we can, or better. It hasn't been cooked in this exact form yet.

What changed, and why. The copy's chicken got a teaspoon of cornflour and a hot wok, which gives you ordinary stir-fry. Here it's coated in egg white and cornflour first, which keeps it juicy and lets the glaze grip. The black pepper and capsicum are gone: the green peppercorns lead, half crushed and bloomed in the oil, half whole at the end so they pop. The brown oyster gravy is cut right back to a short glaze with a little fish sauce and MSG, boiled before the chicken goes back so it clings instead of pooling.

The first version went the whole restaurant road: basil dried overnight and deep-fried, chicken passed through a litre of oil. She said I made it harder! Fair. So this is the weeknight one, half an hour and one wok. The restaurant steps are the Next Level at the bottom, for the full-flavour T-Chow plate when there's time.

The one thing nobody could settle from a desk is the pepper. The English name says green peppercorns, and that's what this uses. But the old Chiu Chow version of this dish is made with Sichuan pepper. If the restaurant's plate numbs your tongue, the next cook swaps the berries for 1½ tsp toasted, ground green Sichuan pepper and keeps everything else.

AI reviewed by Grok, Codex & Claude

The method

Eight moves.

  1. Chicken, Coat

    Slice the thighs across the grain, 5–6 mm. Work in the soy, Shaoxing and sugar until it's absorbed. Then the egg white. Then the cornflour. Then the oil. Leave it 15 minutes while you do the rest.

  2. Peppercorns, Rinse

    Taste one. Rinse them under the cold tap for 10 seconds and dry them. Still sharp or salty, rinse again. Lightly crush 24 g. Keep 16 g whole.

  3. Glaze, Mix

    Whisk the stock, oyster sauce, fish sauce, light soy, sugar, MSG, dark soy and cornflour in a jug. Shaoxing stays separate.

  4. Chicken, Sear

    Wok on the wok burner, flat out, until it just smokes. 15 ml oil. Half the chicken, spread out, pieces apart. Leave it 60 seconds. Toss 60–90 seconds until the coat sets and it's barely cooked through. Out. Same again with 15 ml more oil and the rest.

  5. Wok, Bloom

    Last 15 ml of oil in the hot wok. Spring onion whites, 10 seconds. Garlic, ginger and the crushed peppercorns, 8–10 seconds. Smell them. Don't brown them.

  6. Glaze, Boil

    Shaoxing round the hot wall of the wok. Whisk the glaze again, the cornflour sinks, and pour it in. Boil hard 20–30 seconds, to a gloss that still runs.

  7. Chicken, Toss

    Chicken, whole peppercorns and spring onion greens in. Toss 30–45 seconds until every piece is coated and the thickest slice reads 75°C. Glaze tightens first, a splash of hot water. Basil in last, a few tosses, just wilted.

  8. Plate, Now

    Onto the plate. Rice. Eat it now.

Next level

Restaurant style, fried basil and an oil pass

Optional · no new ingredients · +30 min · starts the day before

This is the full-flavour T-Chow plate: chicken with the silky restaurant texture, sitting on a bed of fried basil. It starts the day before. Wash 60 g of Thai basil instead of 30 g, spin it hard, spread it on a towel and leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight. Bone dry. One drop of water in hot oil and it spits.

On the night, give the coated chicken a full 30 minutes in the fridge. Heat 1 L of rice bran oil in a deep 4 L saucepan, no more than a third full, to 160–165°C. Basil in small handfuls, standing back, until the bubbling dies and it's still green, 15–30 seconds a batch. Out onto a rack.

Let the oil drop to 140–150°C. Stir the chicken. Four batches of about 150 g, pieces separated as they go in, 45–60 seconds each. Out when the coat sets and it's just opaque. Not golden. Drain on a rack. That replaces Chicken, Sear: go straight to Wok, Bloom with 15 ml of the frying oil, and leave the fresh basil out of the toss.

To plate, two-thirds of the fried basil first, chicken on top, the rest round the edge where it stays crisp. Strain the oil and keep it.

Keep wandering

From the same volume.

No. 19Asiago Chicken PastaItalian · 40 minNo. 20Filipino Pork SkewersFilipino · 55 minNo. 21Gochujang-Lime Flat Iron SteakAsian · 25 minNo. 22Mojo Beef SkewersCuban · 55 min

Green Peppercorn Chicken, T-Chow Styleserves 4 · 30 min