Oil-Net Lantern Chicken

🎯 Oil-Net Lantern Chicken · Technique Matrix

The core technique structure of this dish is "one dish, two colors, two flavors" — half in a five-spice white braise, half in a red-broth spicy braise. The precise ratios Chen Songru himself used for this dish are not recorded in the source material, but the manuscript The True Craft of China's Sichuan Cuisine Masters contains a standard recipe (chicken 1500g / caul fat 750g, etc. — see the recipe table below). The technique's lineage is recorded in Chen Tinglong's writing. Recorded in Chen Tinglong's writing

⚠️ The above is the technique lineage as recorded in Chen Tinglong's writing, not Chen Songru's own words, and it carries no precise ratio figures. Unlike Kung Pao Chicken's "standardized 2-minute-30-second stir-fry time," the technical core of Oil-Net Lantern Chicken lies in the qualitative structure of "one dish, two colors, two flavors," and in the process trait that shapes the story below — that a caul-fat-fried dish "cannot go back into the pan a second time."

📜 A Historic Moment · Chairman Mao's Review

"We can't waste a dish this good."

— Mao Zedong, September 7, 1959, Zhongnanhai (as recounted in Chen Songru's autobiography) First-hand account

⚠️ These are Chairman Mao's own words, not Chen Songru's. Chen Songru himself left no direct first-person reflection on this dish; the "The Master Says" sections in the "Follow the Old Master" module quote only other people's reviews and Chen Songru's recorded actions, and do not fabricate a first-person reflection of his.

🏆 Historical Corroboration

• Technique Lineage (Chen Tinglong's writing):
  Reformed from the old Sichuan dish "caul-fat pocket chicken," using a "small Beijing spring chicken" — larger than a chick, smaller than a pigeon — with half done as a five-spice white braise and half as a red-broth spicy braise, forming "one dish, two colors, two flavors." Independent corroboration
• Menu Records:
  Appeared on the 1959 opening menu, the 1974 reopening menu, and the 1982 Sihanouk state-banquet menu. Independent corroboration

📖 Formal Recipe · From The True Craft of China's Sichuan Cuisine Masters

The recipe and method below are sourced from The True Craft of China's Sichuan Cuisine Masters (Chen Songru's manuscript, "V. Dish Methods" chapter); the dish name matches exactly, a high-confidence match. The content is condensed and conveyed faithfully, not copied verbatim in full.

Ingredients

Seasoning ratio, visualized (key seasonings, relative to red chili oil at 50g):

Bar lengths are proportional to gram amounts for illustration only.

⚠️ This is the standardized restaurant recipe from the manuscript, presented alongside the cultural-history material. See the "Manuscript-Standard Method" entry at the end of the "Follow the Old Master" module for the full procedure.