Last week, my good friend Kavitha handed me a fresh cucumber from her garden and charged me with the task of creating something I had never attempted before.

I decided to take my inspiration from a dish at Peter Chang’s Tasty China in Marietta. I don’t know what it’s officially called, but it’s a cold dish with julienned chicken and cucumber that’s tossed in a very hot and numbing Szechuan sauce. The crunchy juiciness of the cucumber pulls back from the heat and gives it a refreshing summeriness.

I embarked on my own version and decided from the beginning that this wouldn’t be anywhere near the spiciness of your typical Szechuan food, but the results surprised me…

For the dressing, I started last night by toasting up a heaping tablespoon of Szechuan peppercorns and one teaspoon of red pepper flakes on the stove. Once fragrant, I transferred them to a mortar and pestle and began to grind them down, but not too fine. Half a cup of canola oil was warmed on the stove and then poured over the ground peppercorn mixture and allowed to sit overnight. This morning, I strained and filtered it so I was left with the infused oil.

One tbsp infused oil, 2 tsp hot (spicy) sesame oil, 2 tsp rice vinegar, 2 tsp soy, 1 tsp dry sherry, 1 tsp Sriracha. Whisk that up and it’s a dressing!

For the chicken, I used chicken breast so that it would take on the flavor of the dressing without making it heavier. There’s a technique that allows you to have very thin pieces of chicken breast that won’t dry out on you while cooking or cooling. Taking a que from my mother’s cooking, I cut thin strips of chicken breast with the grain and tossed them in soy, sesame oil and a little bit of cornstarch. The cornstarch is key. When these pieces are dropped individually in simmering water, the starch immediately gels together and forms a thin shell around the meat, effectively preventing it from drying out rapidly, as breast meat tends to do. Pretty nifty. They’ll still dry out if you leave them in too long, so it’s good to work in batches. After fishing the last of those guys out, I let them drain and cool.

Finally, I julienned the fresh cucumber and had some fun with the plating. For the first plate, I kept the cucumber and the chicken separate, but both had already been tossed with the dressing. Using a formal, more architectural gesture, I laid the chicken over a bed of the cucumber, which was sitting in a pool of the dressing. For the second plate, I mixed it all together and also included some chopped cilantro.

The resulting product was completely different from the dish that inspired it. I knew this would be the case while I was whisking up the dressing, tweaking for flavors. The oil I had infused wasn’t as strong as I intended- the numbing sensation from the peppercorns was mild. I didn’t want to lose that, so I ended up downplaying everything else, including the heat. You’re usually pretty aware that you’re eating Szechuan the moment you take that first bite, but here the first flavors to hit were the vinegar and savoriness. The chicken was done just right and the thin gel on the exterior concentrated the chicken-y flavor and had a smooth, silky mouthfeel (omg i used that word). The crunchy cucumber tasted fresh and clean. And then the heat and the numbing sensation hit. Yes, it was Szechuan, but only subtly so.

I didn’t do very much with the cucumber, but I feel like it served a very specific, very important purpose. Kavitha also wanted me to explore cocktail ideas, but with just one cucumber, I used it all for the dish. More cucumbers, please!