Kung pao chicken

The steps

1. 01 Dice the chicken

   hands-on · 5min · minutes 0–5

   Take off any skin and cut the breast into dice of a centimetre and a half, all the same size.

   • Breast is what nine versions out of sixteen use, along with the Sichuan standard, Fuchsia Dunlop and the encyclopaedia. The other seven use thigh, boned and skinned, which stays tender even if it spends a moment too long in the wok, and three recipes that use breast suggest it themselves: if you prefer it, use the same weight.
   • Breast dries out quickly: the encyclopaedia version and a home cookbook pound it with the back of the knife before cutting it, so it stays more tender and takes the marinade better. Do the same if you like.
   • Dice of a centimetre and a half, all the same size: it's the measurement given by Fuchsia Dunlop, Omnivore's Cookbook and two Chinese cookbooks. Smaller, they dry out; bigger, they stay raw in the centre. First into strips as wide as the dice, then across.
   • Wash the chopping board and knife before you touch the aromatics: undercooked chicken, and food that has touched raw chicken, are the commonest source of Campylobacter, says EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority.

   IT’S READY WHEN Dice all the same size, no skin and no white sinew.

2. 02 Leave the chicken to marinate

   waiting · 15min · minutes 5–20

   Salt, half the soya sauce, the wine and two thirds of the starch: mix with your hands and leave to rest.

   • A pinch of salt, half the light soya sauce, all the Shaoxing wine and two thirds of the potato starch, with a splash of water if the meat is dry: mix with your hands until every piece has a glossy coating. It's the marinade in almost all the sources, and the coating of starch is what keeps the chicken tender in the wok.
   • As long as it takes to prepare the rest: fifteen minutes is the median of eleven sources, Fuchsia Dunlop leaves it to marinate while she cuts the aromatics, one Chinese source goes up to two hours. If you leave it longer, put it in the fridge.
   • Three Chinese recipes add an egg or an egg white, for silkier chicken: it isn't needed, and it isn't on the list.

   IT’S READY WHEN Every piece is glossy under a thin coating, with no liquid on the bottom of the bowl.

3. 03 Fry the peanuts

   hands-on · 7min · minutes 5–12

   In the wok with all the oil, starting cold over a low heat, stirring: lift them out as soon as they're golden.

   • A wok or a wide frying pan, all the oil, the peanuts in while it's cold and a low heat: it's the «冷锅冷油», cold wok and cold oil, of the Chinese cookbooks, because starting cold the peanut cooks through without burning outside. Stir all the time.
   • They're ready when the skins darken, they crackle and inside they're a golden cream colour: one Chinese cookbook says to take them out as soon as you hear a rapid crackling, because the heat that's left goes on cooking them. Lift them out with the slotted spoon and leave the oil in the wok: it's for the chicken.
   • The red skins: five sources take them off, blanching the peanuts first or rubbing them while hot; That Spicy Chick and one Chinese cookbook leave them on, for colour and aroma. If you find them already skinned, raw, they're just as good.
   • If you only have roasted unsalted peanuts, skip this step and add them at the end: Fuchsia Dunlop and four other sources do that. Whole peanuts, with no mould and no rancid smell: peanuts are where aflatoxins are looked for, and the draft Chinese standard for the ready-made dish sets a limit for them.

   IT’S READY WHEN Golden in the centre if you break one, skins darkened, and they've stopped crackling loudly.

4. 04 Prep the chillies and aromatics

   hands-on · 5min · minutes 12–17

   Garlic and ginger thinly sliced, the white of the spring onions in short lengths, the chillies in pieces with no seeds.

   • Garlic and ginger in thin slices, as Fuchsia Dunlop wants them: chopped, they burn at once in the hot oil.
   • Only the white part of the spring onions, in pieces as long as they are wide: that way they're the same size as the diced chicken. In China it's the white of 大葱, the big Chinese spring onion; Chinese cookbooks want plenty of it, because it turns sweet as it cooks.
   • The chillies in pieces of a centimetre and a half, cut with scissors, shaking out the seeds: Fuchsia Dunlop and two Chinese sources take them out, because the seeds burn before the skin and turn bitter. If you want the dish less hot, use fewer chillies; the pepper stays.

   IT’S READY WHEN Garlic and ginger in thin slices, white pieces all the same, chillies split open with no seeds.

5. 05 Leave the peanuts to cool

   waiting · 10min · minutes 15–25

   Spread out on a plate until cold: they turn crunchy as they cool.

   • Straight out of the oil they're still soft: they only turn crunchy once cold, as The Woks of Life writes, and the encyclopaedia recipe spreads them on a wide plate so they cool.
   • Spread out in a single layer, not heaped up in a bowl: the steam trapped underneath softens them.
   • Whole peanuts aren't given to children under five, because of the risk of choking: the NHS says so. For them, chop them finely or crush them. And they're one of the fourteen allergens: anyone eating with you needs to know.

   IT’S READY WHEN Cold to the touch and crunchy between the teeth.

6. 06 Make the sauce

   hands-on · 2min · minutes 17–19

   Sugar, black vinegar, both soya sauces, the rest of the starch and three times as much water as vinegar: stir until the sugar dissolves.

   • It's the «碗汁», the sauce in the bowl: it's made beforehand because in the wok there's no time to pour in one ingredient at a time, and meanwhile the chicken toughens. Almost all the Chinese sources say so.
   • Sugar and vinegar roughly equal, with a little more sugar: it's the «荔枝味», the lychee flavour: a light sweet and sour, a long way from the thick restaurant sauce. The Chinese sources give ratios between two to one and one to two; the median of the weights sits in the middle. The other half of the light soya sauce goes in here, with the dark, which gives the colour.
   • Chinese black vinegar, Zhenjiang or Sichuan's Baoning, dark and almost sweet: ten sources out of sixteen. With a pale vinegar, as The Woks of Life uses, the dish comes out sharper and less deep.
   • In place of the water, chicken stock works well, as Fuchsia Dunlop and Omnivore's Cookbook use. The starch settles: stir again just before pouring.

   IT’S READY WHEN The sugar no longer grates on the bottom of the bowl; the sauce is dark and cloudy.

7. 07 Flash-fry the chicken

   hands-on · 3min · minutes 20–23

   Hot oil, the chicken scattered into the wok: leave it still for a moment, then toss it until white outside and lift it out.

   • High heat: when the oil shimmers, add the chicken and spread it out. Leave it still for as long as the starch coating takes to set, then move it about with the wok ladle until the pieces separate and turn white outside: ten sources out of fifteen flash-fry it and take it out, and put it back at the end.
   • White outside and still pink in the centre: it finishes cooking with the sauce. Lift it out with the slotted spoon into a bowl and leave the oil in the wok.
   • Fuchsia Dunlop, and four Chinese sources with her, does it all in one go without taking it out: first the chillies, then the chicken, then aromatics and sauce. It works with fierce heat; on a home hob, chicken taken out and put back is more forgiving.
   • For more than four servings the wok can't cope: the chicken boils instead of frying. Flash-fry it in two batches.

   IT’S READY WHEN The pieces are separate and white on every side, still pink if you open one.

8. 08 Fry the chillies and aromatics

   hands-on · 2min · tricky · minutes 23–25

   Medium heat: chillies and Sichuan pepper until the chillies darken, then garlic, ginger and spring onions.

   • It's the step that makes the dish, the «糊辣», the scorched-chilli flavour: the chillies have to turn dark red, almost brown, but never black: burnt, they make the whole dish bitter. Fuchsia Dunlop, That Spicy Chick and three Chinese cookbooks all warn about it.
   • Medium heat, not high: the Chinese sources turn the heat down for this moment. Chillies and Sichuan pepper together, in the oil that's left; if they darken too fast, take the wok off the heat, as Fuchsia Dunlop advises.
   • The Sichuan pepper stays in the dish in eight sources; in five it's lifted out with the ladle as soon as it smells fragrant, for anyone who doesn't want to bite on it. Here it stays, and there's little of it: in kung pao it doesn't numb the mouth as it does in mapo tofu, it perfumes it.
   • As soon as the chillies have taken colour, garlic, ginger and spring onions: half a minute, until fragrant.

   IT’S READY WHEN Dark red, glossy chillies, none of them black; a smell of toasted chillies and pepper.

9. 09 Return the chicken and thicken the sauce

   hands-on · 2min · tricky · minutes 25–27

   High heat, chicken in, then the sauce stirred again: toss until glossy, add the peanuts and serve at once.

   • Put the chicken back and turn the heat up, toss for a moment, then stir the sauce again and pour it all round: in a few seconds it thickens and coats every piece. The right colour is «棕红», reddish brown, which the Sichuan standard prescribes for this dish.
   • The chicken has to be cooked through to the centre: open one of the biggest pieces, as Fuchsia Dunlop does. It must be white and firm, with no pink. The Campylobacter in raw chicken is killed only by cooking, as Italy's national health institute, the ISS, points out.
   • The peanuts last, two turns of the ladle and off the heat: every source repeats it, because in the hot sauce they soften, and a kung pao with soft peanuts isn't kung pao any more.
   • To the table straight away, with plain white rice, which isn't on this card. The Sichuan standard for hot dishes asks for ten minutes at most between the wok and the table.
   • No cucumber, no carrot, no peppers: those are the additions of northern China and of restaurants abroad, and they make the sauce watery. In Guizhou, where Ding Baozhen was born, the governor who gives the dish its name, it's made with a paste of dried chillies soaked and pounded with garlic and ginger (糍粑辣椒) and chicken with the skin on: it's another dish, and four sources tell its story.

   IT’S READY WHEN The sauce has vanished into a glossy reddish-brown coating round the chicken and peanuts, with no liquid on the bottom of the wok.