Gongbao Chicken (Kung Pao)

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Gongbao chicken (or Kung-Pao, although the right variant is Gongbao) it’s a stir-frying dish from China. in the first place. If you’re not familiar with “stir-frying”, I’ll explain in a few words – fast wok frying.

In the future, I’ll prepare some information about wok and how to cook there right. And now, I’ll try to describe shortly, what do you need to know, to cook the dish right.

Before the start, I’d like to clarify two important points.

1. Gongbao is a fried chicken with peanuts and vegetables in the hot sauce. The hotness is a main punch line in the taste. If you’re not the hot fan – do not excel and use this recipe. Firstly – it’ll be a completely different dish, and secondly – it’ll lose the major part of taste.

2. You’ll need a wok. Of course, you can cook on the regular flat frying pan, but the result would be far away from expected. I’ll repeat myself – a wok is really preferable.

⏱ Cooking time — 50 minutes overall. Includes 20 minutes of preparation and cooking + 30 minutes unattended.

🔪 Ingredients

For 2 servings:

• 600 g (1,3 lb) chicken breasts (don’t have? check for chicken breast substitutes)
• 2 + 2 tsp soy sauce
• 2 + 2 tsp dry white wine
• 1 + 1 tsp corn starch
• 100 g (3,5 oz) peanuts
• 0,5 tsp chili flakes
• 0,5 tsp Sichuan pepper
• 3 stalks of spring onion (can be replaced with leeks)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 20-30 g (0,7 – 1 oz) ginger
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 2 tsp sugar
• 3-6 chili peppers depending on size (you can use dry one if you have)
• Cooking oil

Equipment:

• Wok

🥣 Directions

STEP 1. MARINATE THE CHICKEN

Dice the chicken 600 g (1,3 lb) and put it to the deep bowl.

Add 2 tsp of soy sauce, 2 tsp of dry white wine on top, and 1 tsp of corn starch.

Leave for 30 minutes at least, but better to marinate for a couple of hours.

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STEP 2. PREPARE THE REST OF INGREDIENTS.

When cooking in a wok, you need to remember that in the first place it’s fast frying. So, it means that you need to have all the ingredients at your fingertips and sliced.

Don’t hope that you’ll have time to slice something when you already have some vegetables, meat or other ingredients in the wok. You’ll just burn everything down.

If you’re the authenticity fan, you’ll need to work hard to find the Sichuan pepper. If you’ve done that – great, if no – read more.

I’ve adapted the recipe a bit to our realities and replaced it with regular chili flakes, that you’ll find in every supermarket.

First of all, chop the green part of 3 stalks of spring onion and mix with ½ tbsp of chili flakes, put aside. (if you’re using Sichuan pepper, do the same, but grind in the mortar beforehand). Don’t chop much onion, just 3-4 cm.

By the way, I used leek instead of spring onion.

Cut the remaining white part of onion into the 2-3 cm pieces. You can also use leek as I did.

Finely chop 2 cloves of garlic and a piece of ginger (or grate), in order to have 1 tbsp.

Next -chili (3-6 pieces). In the original recipe, we need to use the dry chili, but if you don’t have one, that’s not a problem at all. It’s preferable not to choose long ones – approximately 6-8 cm long.

I don’t very like chopped chili in this recipe – they give to much hotness. And make impossible to control it while eating (want more – eat a pepper, less – eat a chicken, put the pepper aside). If you’ve bought small peppers, use them whole, just cut off the top, if they’re long cut into 3-4 cm pieces.

If you don’t like hot dishes but somehow you’ve read down here, I’ll give you a piece of advice on how to make it less spicy but at the same time save taste as much as possible. Clear the peppers from the seeds and throw them away (seeds).

And at last, make a sauce: mix in the glass 2 tsp of soy sauce, 2 tsp of dry white wine, 1 tsp of corn starch, 1 tbsp wine vinegar, and 2 tsp of sugar. Mix until smooth.

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STEP 3. FRY!

Heat the wok up (I’ll repeat it a few more times, so get used).

Remember this. If you’re cooking any stir-frying dish at home, it’s highly desirable to fry everything partially to not overload a wok. You may have seen that in some places with wok-menu chefs add the ingredients one by one into the wok and fry them together in the open kitchen. And have you seen the ovens they cook in? It’s important to understand the following: stir-fry is fast high-temperature frying. When you add any products there, the temperature drops. If you add too much at once, the temperature will drop to the level when ingredients aren’t frying, but lose moisture and stew in juices. In this case, you will spend more time cooking, lean meat will become dry, vegetables mild and there would be no crust. You need to remember one rule when cooking at home using wok – fry partially.

Firstly, fry the peanuts 100 g (3,5 oz) . Put them into a heated wok without oil. You can use whole ones or chop them with a knife. Fry for a minute or two, constantly stirring.

Fry until there is a nut flavor, but the peanuts aren’t ready yet. Put the nuts into the clean plate, wok put back on the fire.

When it heated, fry the chili peppers with 1 tsp of chili flakes for 20-30 seconds. Then put to the plate with peanuts.

Heat the wok again, add 1 tbsp of oil on the walls, heat until a slight smoke. Place half of the marinated chicken in one layer and don’t touch it for a minute.

Stir in a minute and cook for another 1-1,5 minutes constantly stirring. Put the chicken in the deep bowl.

Clean the wok with a paper towel and do the same with the remaining chicken.

Clean the wok again, add 1 tbsp of oil and fry the spring onion (white part) for 1 minute. After that add fried chicken, pepper, and peanuts.

Mix and cook for about 15 seconds in order to warm up all the ingredients evenly. Put the ingredients near the walls to make an empty space in the middle, add there ginger and garlic.

Cook for 15 seconds stirring just them. Then mix all together and add the sauce.

Finely mix the sauce before adding. After that cook for 20-30 seconds constantly stirring until the sauce becomes thicker, cover all ingredients, and add glossy shine.

Put on the serving plates, decorate with chopped spring onion. Serve while hot. As a side dish, you can boil the rice beforehand.

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