Despite its name, Mongolian chicken has almost no connection to Mongolia. The history of the name leads back to Wu Zhaonan, a comedian who was born in Beijing. During the Chinese Civil War, Wu fled to Taiwan, where he opened a food stall in Taipei in 1951.
Wu’s dish was cooked on a griddle, a flat cooking surface. He would have preferred to name it “Peking barbecue” in honor of his hometown. Peking is another name for Beijing. However, Beijing had just been named the capital of Communist China. The history behind the dish’s name therefore involves Beijing and Taiwan rather than a close connection to Mongolia.
