Kung pao chicken

In the 80s UK your local village probably had:

·       a fish and chip shop doing deep fried top quality battered items, our local chippy had a lady that was about a million years old and cooked the best deep fried cod ever and the best chips, cooked in beef fat and served in newspaper

·       a butcher that did (no more than 2) variants of a hot pork sandwich (savoury pork or saveloy) with options to add stuffing and have it ‘dipped’ in gravy

·       a quality baker where the items were made on site and sold out by 10.30 am.  You may have even had a mate who was doing a part time job there from 4-7am before school.

But. 

We also got a Chinese takeaway and our food world expanded more than we could imagine. 

Starting with ‘Chinese chips and black gravy’ served on a tray (not newspaper) and covered in tin foil; we moved through the menu to variations of stir fries and curries that blew our minds.  It still blows my mind that I could order everything on our local Chinese takeaway menu and it still just takes 10 mins to make.

Kung Pao chicken is one of the top searched for recipes on the internet and it is with great pleasure to bring this one to you from www.recipetineats.com

Credit and permission to share: Nagi | RecipeTin Eats.

You will need

Kung Pao chicken - done right! The flavour of this sauce is very similar to proper restaurant versions, with a great balance of savoury-sweet and sour with the numbing tingle from Sichuan pepper. Use whole Sichuan peppercorns if you have them, otherwise ground is fine (which is what I use).

Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 25 minutes mins

Servings: 4

Ingredients

Chicken

• 1 lb / 500g chicken thigh, cut into bite size pieces

Sauce

• 2 tsp cornflour / cornstarch

• 1 tbsp light soy sauce

• 1.5 tbsp dark soy sauce

• 2 tbsp Chinese black vinegar

• 1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine

• 3 tbsp sugar, any

• 1/2 tsp sesame oil

• 1/3 cup water

Stir Fry

• 2 tbsp peanut oil (or other cooking oil)

• 2 garlic cloves, minced

• 1 tsp ginger, finely chopped

• 6 - 10 dried chillies (adjust to taste), cut into 2cm/ 3/4" pieces, most seeds discarded

• 3 green onions, cut into 2cm/ 3/4" pieces, white parts separated from green

• 1.5 tsp ground Sichuan peppercorns, adjust to taste

• 3/4 cup whole peanuts (or 1/2 cup halved), roasted unsalted

Instructions

Sauce & Marinade Chicken:

1. Mix cornflour and soy sauce in a small bowl until cornflour is dissolved. Then mix in remaining Sauce ingredients EXCEPT water.

2. Pour 1.5 tbsp sauce over chicken. Toss to coat, set aside for 10 - 20 minutes.

3. Add water into remaining sauce.

Stir Fry:

1. Heat oil in wok over high heat. Add garlic, ginger and chillies. Cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant.

2. Add chicken, cook until it turns white, then add the white part of the green onions. Cook until chicken is cooked through - about 2 minutes.

3. Add sauce and Sichuan pepper. Bring to simmer, mixing constantly, until almost all the sauce reduces to a thick syrup.

4. Just before the end, mix through peanuts and green part of the green onions. Also check spiciness - add more Sichuan pepper if you can handle the heat!

5. Serve immediately with rice - or for a low carb, low cal option, try cauliflower rice!

Notes

1. Chicken - I prefer making this with thigh because it's juicier, but it can be made with breast or tenderloin. If using breast, option to tenderise using the Chinese method so it's super tender and juicy like you get at Chinese restaurants - see How to tenderise chicken the Chinese way (velveting)

2. Light soy sauce is saltier and lighter in colour than all purpose soy sauce (like Kikkoman). The bottle will have "light soy sauce" written on it. It's available in large supermarkets - e.g. Coles and Woolworths in Australia. It can be substituted with all purpose soy sauce - like Kikkoman.

3. Dark soy sauce is much darker in colour than light soy sauce has has more flavour. The bottle has "dark soy sauce" written on the label. This is mainly to darken the colour of the sauce so if you don't have it, you can substitute with all purpose soy sauce or even with light soy sauce.

4. Chinese black vinegar for the sour is the authentic way of making it. It looks like balsamic vinegar, tastes like it too but with a slight savoury edge. It's available at Asian stores and some large supermarkets. Substitute with 1.5 tbsp of rice wine vinegar, or 1 tbsp white vinegar or even a mild balsamic vinegar (plain one).

Do not use Taiwanese black vinegar (which is also sold at some Asian grocery stores), it tastes like sour Worcestershire sauce and it changes the flavour of this recipe. Bottle label will say "made in Taiwan".

5. Chinese cooking wine is also called shaosing / shoaxing wine, see here for more information. It's the ingredient that makes recipes truly taste like what you get at Chinese restaurants.

Substitutions: dry sherry or mirin (if using mirin, skip the sugar) or Japanese cooking sake (rice wine). If you can't consume alcohol, then skip it but use chicken broth in place of water.

6. Sichuan peppercorns are not that spicy, they sort of make your mouth numb. In a pleasant way! I used to grind my own but nowadays I just buy ground. If you grind your own, toast them in a dry pan first then grind - it will have slightly better flavour but you get grittiness. 

Taste first for spiciness as I find that the spiciness varies. Add more at the end if you want more heat.

They can be purchased at Asian grocery stores, fruit and veg stores that stock spices and some supermarkets. In Australia, they can be purchased at Harris Farms. In America, I am told that Sichuan pepper is sold at Wholefoods!

7. Dried chillies: I find that the spiciness of dried chillies drastically differs from brand to brand! So adjust this to taste. Cut off a tiny bit of the chilli and check how hot it is, then decide how many to use. I typically use 6 dried chillies that are around 6 - 7cm/ 2.5" long, deseeded.