Cabbage Salad Fit for an Emperor

Have you ever seen a more gorgeous plate of cabbage? Its crisp Napa leaves are bathed in a luxurious sauce of stone-ground sesame paste, dark soy sauce, black vinegar, sugar and honey. Nothing less would be expected in a dish called Qianlong cabbage (Qiánlóng báicài, 乾隆白菜). Emperor Qianlong’s favorite cabbage salad—or so goes the lore in Beijing—this dish is on practically every menu in the capital, according to our contributor Zoe Yang. 

"When I set out to research this recipe," writes Zoe, "I thought it represented a straightforward case of Chinese culinary marketing spin: The Qianlong Emperor (1711–1799) supposedly came across a humble cabbage dish served by an overlooked but secretly talented (and thus deserving) individual....

"The crux of the story is the same in all of these tellings. The emperor is eating raw cabbage, and the emperor does not usually eat raw cabbage—he eats 300-course feasts of bear paw and monkey brains—so there has to be some storytelling hook to bring the cabbage to the emperor: He is out late so the kitchens have closed and there is nothing else to serve; he is somewhere rural and poor and cold so there is nothing but cabbage. You get the point. Also, he is in disguise, so whoever is serving him cabbage can be forgiven for the offense....

"But here’s the interesting thing about this origin story: There is no evidence that Qianlong cabbage existed at all before the 2000s...."

Click through to see what Zoe found about its true origins—and, of course, to make this easy stunner! 

Mouthwatering Sichuan Chicken Salad

Another sauce made entirely from pantry ingredients gives this Sichuan cold chicken dish its name: kou shui ji, 口水鸡, or saliva chicken, which we'll translate as drool-worthy or mouthwatering chicken.

The Sichuan canon has multiple variations on cold chicken in red-hot oil, where chicken in various forms is dressed in high-quality chili oil along with varying proportions of soy sauce, black vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, Sichuan pepper, Sichuan pepper oil and, often, Chinese sesame paste.

Truth be told, you could put this sauce on anything and it would be mouthwatering, but when you put it on perfectly poached/steamed/rotisseried chicken, it's a combo that deserves its constant presence and myriad variations on Sichuan menus.

This is one of my earliest recipes on the blog, which I've updated and revised slightly for its 10th birthday. It makes the abundance of sauce you need to float the chicken in the dressing, but you can use any leftover to sauce dumplings or noodles. (Fongchong said it made a terrific lunch last week on our knife-cut noodles after she finished off the chicken.) 

Two tips:

• This is the place to use your premium sauces. Because they won't be subjected to heat, the full flavors will shine through. 
• There's no shame in applying the kou shui treatment to a Costco (or any other store-bought) rotisserie chicken. After all, it's all about that sauce!