Chinese Kung Pao Chicken

This classic Chinese dish is super easy and tasty to whip up for an easy dinner. It’s pretty much just a simple stir fry with certain key ingredients like dried chillies to flavor the oil, peanuts, green onions and of course some garlic and ginger. The sauces give the dish it’s tang as it use’s a Chinese dark rice vinegar, which you can use dry sherry as a substitute. A touch of sugar and soy sauce and you’re away. I feel this dish is best served with some plain steamed rice as to not over complicate the flavors.

Ingredients

Serves 2

Marinade

  • 1 tbsp cornflour / corn starch

  • 1 tbsp Chinese rice wine or dry sherry

  • 1 tbsp soy sauce

 Ingredients

  • 2 Chicken breasts cut into small chunks

  • 2 tsp sesame oil

  • 2 tbsp ground nut or canola oil

  • 5 spring onions washed and sliced

  • 8 dried chillies de seeded

  • 2 big cloves garlic finely chopped

  • 1 inch piece of finely grated ginger

  • ½ cup dry roasted peanuts

 

Sauce

  • 3 tbsp light soy sauce

  • 1 tbsp Chinese black rice vinegar / or balsamic as a sub

  • 2 tsp sugar

  • 2 tbsp water

Method:

Start by marinading your chicken.  Mix all the marinade ingredients together in a bowl, add the chicken and stir, making sure it’s all coated.  Leave to one side preferably for ½ hour while you prepare all your other ingredients.

Make sure you have everything chopped and ready to cook before you start cooking this dish.  Chop the spring onions, garlic and ginger. Slice dried chilies in half and de seed them. (If you like it super spicy keep them in!)

Mix together all the ingredients in a separate bowl for the sauce.

Now you are ready to cook!  Heat the oils in a wok, have the heat on medium, not too hot or it will burn.  Add the chillies first for a few seconds, this helps flavor the oil.  Next add the chicken and stir fry until it has all turned white or browned on the outside, then add the garlic, ginger and peanuts.  Stir fry for a couple of minutes until the chicken is nearly cooked and then add the sauces and spring onions.  Keep stir frying until the chicken is cooked through, if the sauce get’s too thick you can add a little water about a tbsp to thin it out.

Serve on a bed of steamed white rice.

Asian, Chicken, Dinner, Entreecaroline artissComment