Jiaoma Chicken (Spiced Cold Chicken)

Jiaoma chicken is a cold dish: a whole chicken is boiled and cooled, then torn by hand into fine shreds and dressed in a numbing-spicy sauce of Sichuan pepper, dried chilli, scallion oil and vinegar. The meat is silky, the skin crisp and snappy, and a tingle of pepper weaves through the heat, a cool dish with a fierce aroma and a common drinking snack across Xinjiang.

Jiaoma chicken originated in Xinjiang, fusing the numbing pepper of Sichuan with the fragrance of northwestern chilli, a true meeting of the region's many food cultures. In Kashgar's night markets and restaurants a plate of jiaoma chicken with a glass of kvass or cold beer is the most pleasant pairing of a summer evening.

Dressed to order and eaten as a cold dish or drinking snack, it often shares the table with belt noodles and kebabs; the shredded chicken soaked in the numbing-spicy sauce grows more flavourful as it sits, and skin with meat is the most satisfying bite.

The union of Sichuan-pepper numbness, chilli fragrance and silky hand-shredded chicken served cold, with a sauce that deepens as it soaks, is what makes jiaoma chicken distinctive.