Kung Pao Chicken
This is an absolute favourite of ours. We got the recipe from a website where it got excellent reviews. That said, they all started with , “This is my favourite recipe of all time. I change it a bit, I add this and remove that, but it’s brilliant” – so much for the original recipe! We have made a couple of minor changes to the original too but it definitely suits our taste.
Our version of the kung pao chicken recipe has less peanuts as we found that adding too many spoiled the dish.
Kung Pao Chicken
Servings: 2 people
Calories: 612kcal
Equipment
Ingredients
For the Marinade
- 1 tbsp Soy Sauce
- 2 tsp Chinese Rice Wine or dry sherry if you don't have Chinese Rice Wine
- 1½ tsp Cornflour
- 500 g Chicken Breast cut into 25mm cubes
For the Sauce
- 1 tbsp Chinese Black Vinegar or really good balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp Soy Sauce
- 1 tsp Hoisin Sauce
- 1 tsp Cornflour
- 2 tsp Sugar
- ½ tsp Sichuan Pepper
- 2 tbsp Ground Nut Oil
- 8 dried Red Chillies
- 3 Spring Onions thinly sliced with white and green parts separated
- 2 cloves Garlic grated
- 1 tsp Root Ginger grated
- 50 g Peanuts unsalted from their shells
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, stir together the soy sauce, rice wine, and cornflower until the cornflower is dissolved. Add the chicken and stir gently to coat. Let it stand at room temperature for 10 minutes
- In another bowl, combine the Chinese black vinegar, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, sugar, cornflower, and Sichuan pepper. Stir until the sugar and cornflower are dissolved and leave within arm's reach ready to use
- Heat a wok or large frying pan over high heat until a bead of water sizzles and evaporates on contact. Add the ground nut oil and swirl around. Add the chilies and stir-fry for about 30 seconds, or until the chilies have just begun to blacken and the oil is slightly fragrant. (You might want to open a window at this point, the chillies get a little smokey!) Add the chicken and stir-fry until just cooked. This will literally take 2 to 3 minutes
- Add the spring onion whites, garlic, and ginger and fry for about 30 seconds. Pour in the sauce and mix to coat the other ingredients. Stir in the peanuts and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes. Serve sprinkled with the spring onion greens on top
Nutrition
Calories: 612kcal | Carbohydrates: 16g | Protein: 62g | Fat: 33g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Cholesterol: 160mg | Sodium: 1003mg | Potassium: 1180mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 293IU | Vitamin C: 13mg | Calcium: 57mg | Iron: 2mg