Chinese · Main
Kung Pao Chicken
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with fresh herbs arguing happily on top, toasted, nutty warmth throughout, with a clean, bright snap.
Ingredients
- 500g chicken thigh, diced, velveted (1 tsp each soy, wine, cornstarch)
- Dried chilies, 1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
- Roasted peanuts, scallion whites
- Sauce: 1 tbsp each soy, black vinegar, sugar; 1 tsp dark soy; slurry
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · nuts · peanuts · soy · alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Sizzle chilies and peppercorns in oil until fragrant, not black.
- Add chicken; stir-fry until golden at the edges.
- Add scallions, then the sauce; it should thicken in seconds.
- Toss in peanuts off heat.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Wok technique 28 recipes
- Everything went in dry and went in in order. Wet protein or wet vegetables drop the wok below the heat that browns, and what follows is a stew in a round pan however hard the burner is working.
- The wok stays loud from the first moment to the last. A wok that falls quiet has been overloaded, and the food in it is now boiling in its own liquid.
- Every piece is coated and glossy with no pooled sauce in the bottom of the dish: the sauce should cling by reduction and starch, not sit under the food.
- Vegetables keep their colour and a bite at the centre. Grey-green greens or a limp stem mean too long in the pan, and nothing later in the dish recovers them.
- It carries the faint scorched note that only comes from food touching metal above about 200C, distinct from bitterness, which means the aromatics were burnt and is a different failure entirely.
Where it goes wrong Too much went in at once, or it went in wet. The wok loses its heat, the food releases water and simmers, the sauce thins instead of clinging, and the dish arrives pale and slack with liquid pooling under it.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Off-dry Riesling (Mosel Kabinett)
- Also Right
- Gewürztraminer or off-dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Crisp lager or pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- Agua fresca or iced jasmine tea
Sugar, cold, and low alcohol are the fire code: sweetness tames capsaicin while acid resets the palate; tannin would fan the flames.
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