Poached Chile Chicken and Wonton Soup | Andrew Zimmern

For the poached chile chicken, bring stock, sliced ginger, halved cloves garlic and the 1 hot chile pepper to a boil in a large pot. Lower the chicken into the liquid. When liquid returns to a simmer, cover and cook for 90 seconds. Turn off heat and leave chicken in the liquid for 90 minutes.  

Remove chicken from liquid and reserve liquid for the wonton soup. When chicken is cool enough to handle, hack with a cleaver and arrange meat in a wide rimmed bowl like an oversized pie plate. Or, remove meat from bones and slice the white and dark meat ¼ inch thick. 

In a separate heatproof bowl, place the sliced garlic, cut Chinese chilies, minced hot red chile, minced ginger, sugar, chicken bouillon powder and ground white peppercorns and combine. Ladle hot oil (just heat oil in a small pan for a few minutes) over the dry ingredients. Stir and immediately add the black vinegar, soy sauce and hot chile oil or chili crisp and stir. Pour sauce over the chicken and garnish with sesame seeds, peanuts and sliced scallions.   

For the wonton soup, sprinkle a large tray with a dusting of cornstarch and bring the chicken poaching liquid to a boil. 

Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, combine the pork, shrimp, cabbage, chives, wine, salt, garlic, ginger, soy sauce and sesame oil. Mix well slowly. Spoon about ½ ounce of filling onto each wrapper and wet the edge. Fold the wrapper in half (to form a half moon) and seal the edge. Next, bring the ends around and seal with more water to make wonton shape. Sit the wonton with the folds standing up on the prepared tray. (The recipe makes 24 to 32 wontons.) Poach in the chicken poaching liquid until cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes. 

To serve, season the poaching liquid with soy sauce and ladle it and the wontons into bowls. Garnish with sesame seeds, scallions, chili crisp and carrot curls (if using).