Kung Pao Chicken
Stir-fried diced chicken with peanuts and dried chilies, spicy, crisp, and tender.
Ingredients
Tender young chicken (deboned, tenderized with the back of a knife, sinews severed, diced into cubes)
2
Peanuts (soaked in hot water, peeled, fried in oil until crisp)
50 g
Pickled vegetables (diced into rice grain-sized pieces)
50 g
Dried small red chili peppers (seeds removed, cut into segments)
6
Garlic cloves (sliced)
50 g
Peanut oil
to taste
Sweet wine sauce
to taste
Salt
to taste
Soy sauce
to taste
Scallions (cut into segments)
to taste
Chili powder
to taste
Sichuan peppercorns
to taste
Water starch slurry
to taste
Chicken stock
to taste
MSG
to taste
Sesame oil
to taste
Instructions
1
Prepare the ingredients
Slaughter the chicken, remove all feathers, open along the back bone to remove the innards, and wash clean. Remove all bones, tenderize the meat with the back of a knife, sever the sinews, and chop into cubes. Soak the peanuts in hot water, peel off the skins, and fry in oil until crisp. Remove the seeds from the dried small red peppers and cut into segments. Dice the pickled vegetables into rice grain-sized pieces. Slice the garlic. Cut the scallions into segments.
2
Marinate the chicken
Toss the chicken cubes with a little salt, cooking wine, and soy sauce until evenly combined, then add water starch slurry to coat them well and drizzle over a little sesame oil. Separately, combine soy sauce, vinegar, sweet wine sauce, MSG, water starch slurry, and a little stock into a sauce mixture and set aside.
3
Stir-fry
Heat the peanut oil until it shimmers, add the Sichuan peppercorns and fry until fragrant, then fish them out and discard. Immediately add the dried red peppers and fry until they turn purplish-red, then add the garlic slices and chicken cubes, spreading them out in the wok. Add the diced pickled vegetables and chili powder and stir-fry briefly, then pour in the prepared sauce along with the peanuts and scallion segments. Toss everything together a few times, transfer to a plate, and serve.
