Food Lab Basics: POV Kung Pao Chicken

Avery once Kenji I'm here at my restaurant worst hall in San Mateo and today I'm making some kung pao chicken you've probably I've made a couple videos of this before but you know this is like a new format I guess completely new world so we're gonna do it again starting with some chicken thigh this time I think the recipe I have written calls for chicken breast but you can really do it either way I happen to have some chicken thigh here I'm just gonna trim off some of this excess fat this is one of those dishes that actually really works quite well with chicken breast cuz it uh chicken breast you know I find it absorbs flavors really nicely and so long as you don't overcook it it can be really nice and tender I don't know if it's I'm just getting older or what but I tend to actually prefer chicken breasts these days to chicken thigh most of the time at least one is well prepared so we're gonna dice this up into mmm maybe like half inch to 3/4 inch dice doesn't have to be too precise the goal really is just even size so that it all cooks evenly you don't have to wait for like a big pieces to cook while the small pieces cook this is a it's a classic Sichuan dish it has some of that mala flavor the UM the spicy and numbing flavor because I used a citron peppercorns and dried chilies but it's not particularly spicy you know it's not it's not like like Lhasa gee like the Chongqing style chicken with chilies which is really spicy kung pao chicken is a little bit more mild so we got our chicken I'm gonna get into this 6th pan here look it's not the restaurant we do we do color-coded things - red is for meat white is for vegetables and stuff so that you don't cross contaminate at home you don't really have to do that just be careful about how you wash it I'm gonna wash my hands people sometimes ask me whether it's important to wear gloves or not or whether you're supposed to wear gloves at a restaurant well gloves are optional in the state of California they're optional and actually a lot of the research shows that people who don't use gloves actually tend to be a little bit cleaner because they wash their hands more frequently whereas when you wear gloves you tend to forget to change them frequently enough and so you end up hearing more pathogens around than you would if you just washed your hands without wearing gloves all right so now I got my chicken this is a little bit of light soy sauce you could also use sure you that's about a teaspoon or so and this is about 12 ounces of Jing a little bit of cornstarch it's tiny you be the shush in wine you could use dry sherry if you don't have shouting wine judging line is a oxidized rice wine Chinese rice wine and some salt I'm just gonna mix it all up if you want to really go kind of all out on this and one extraordinarily tender chicken what you can do is wash it which I sometimes do with my meats I don't usually don't do too much a chicken I might do with chicken breast which is you wash the meat so you take the chicken you put it in a bowl of cold water you swirl it around swirl around with your fingertips um if you watch Chef one gangs YouTube channel W Aang space G ang he's a chef once from citron knows a great YouTube channel he shows you frequently how to wash meats like that and it helps him absorb marinades a little bit better and it also tenderizes them so I got a couple other ingredients here we got our scallions so scallions what I like to do so you see how sometimes they get like that cut just kind of slimy outer layers just run them under a little cold water and basically slide those layers off [Music] and sometimes you want it sometimes like with things like this you want to pull off that entire outer layer and you'll feel like a kind of slimy in-between layer that you also need to slide off [Music] all right there you go Scottie and so the scallions we're also going to cut into chunks about a similar size to the chicken the goal here and in fact with a lot of a lot of stir-fried dishes the goal is to get all of your ingredients to sort of the same size you know kind of chopsticks size so these scallions want to cut into about you know 1/2 to 3/4 inch knobs just the white parts you can save the greens for something else or if they're looking tired like mine wears you can just discard them we got our scallions here we got our chicken we got peanuts and what are we got some garlic here garlic peeled trim off the tops and then you can you can mince it or you guide you I prefer actually sliced garlic for this so what I do is I get it lay it flat cut it not quite up not quite perpendicular to the grain but a little bit of an angle and what I do is I go half way like this and then turn it over onto 5pi doing some time serve over again if it's a really big club like that so I was cutting like that I can turn it over again so that the flat side is stable okay I mean let me show you slowly alright so fingers like this cut that cut that see slices and then you try to you take it and you turn it on its side like this you keep going see easy these are gonna go into here and some gingers I'm gonna take how much ginger do you want we want ya I'll use like maybe one of these smaller pieces spoon is the easiest way to peel ginger just rub it with a spoon and the peel comes right off skin I should say the skin comes yeah and if it's uh if it's really old ginger you might want to consider sort of micro planing it or really finely mincing it this ginger is nice and seems nice and tender so I'm just gonna slice it and I'm actually gonna sliver it so I'm a first slice into planks like this okay and then I'm gonna kind of roughly you can be very precise if you want you know like if I was doing this at a fancy restaurant I'd be very precise but I'm not I'm just cooking for myself right now so I'm gonna kind of roughly lay them out till they're perpendicular to each other oops and then go back along this way to get kind of thin strips julienne fine julienne matchsticks that's what they call them okay hmm all right so those are our aromatics aromatics peanuts scallions chicken Nellist your spices so we got these dried chilies these are citron heaven facing peppers you can use arbol chili de arbol any kind of sort of small hot pepper will work snip off the stem end of all of them now arbol chilies are quite hot and these systems these two chili is actually quite hot as well but most of that heat is in the ribs and in the seeds so what we really want is more of the chili flavor and less of the chili heat so we're going to take out the seeds I'm after after trimming these that guy's a little tired looking dried chilies by the way store them in the freezer and they last a long time and so I'm taking out taking out the seeds first like that do a little shake and flick like that of course if you really want this dish spicy which what you can is totally up to you you can leave those seeds right in there and it'll it'll make it fiery hot so Chili's provide the hot heat actually let's let's quickly so these we're also going to cut into about the same size pieces roughly the same size I'm gonna basically cut them in half [Music] this by the way is one of my favorite dishes of all time when I was growing up you know I grew up in New York and in New York Chinese restaurants the dish was sort of translated into something called diced chicken with hot peppers and peanuts and it usually had bell peppers and peanuts and celery so not a particularly authentic version but I like both versions you know this is this is sort of the more classic real citron version so we got our chilies some peppercorns this is too many of them but so when you get your stitch one people corns these are the husk event of the prickly ash tree a berry of the prickly ash tree and mainly you're looking you're looking just for the husk so if you look if you get your central peppercorns I buy mine online usually or sometimes at the Chinese market these ones came from the Chinese market sometimes they have these little black seeds which are the interior parts of the of the husk and you don't want those so if you can pick those out usually there aren't too many but it really really varies from brain to brain so there's a couple in here those get a kind of crunchy sort of sandy texture and they're really unpleasant to eat so you're looking just for the husk which is where the flavor is and of course it's like some some brains also come with like a lot of twigs and stuff in them this one this brown looks really clean which is nice sometimes you'll see little twigs here's a tiny twig if you see little twigs like that get rid of them alright so peppercorns chilies and maybe a teaspoon or so of peppercorns doesn't he doesn't need to be too many this is what's gonna provide that sort of numbing heat as well as that you know a ton of aroma they have a very sort of lemony aroma which is beautiful let me any piney aroma and then they they numb your mouth and that's that's really one of the features of citron citron cuisine right I think that's all our ingredients so the only other things are the sauce let me get a little Bowl to make this awesome who's this so a little splash of water or stock I'm just using water here a couple tablespoons we're gonna do a little bit of light soy sauce some shashing wine I'm just eyeballing this but if you go to I'll leave a link in the description which will tell you give you a link to exactly where a recipe with all the exact ratios of ingredients this is Cinque Kang vinegar I'm so it's an aged vinegar if you can't find chinking vinegar which you can find basically in any chinese market or order online if you can't get it or you don't want to order online you can use balsamic vinegar that's actually the closest thing to it a little bit of cornstarch so this is not like a super saucy dish the way like a Chinese American style kung pao chicken is so we don't want it to be like super gloppy and cornstarch is what makes that makes sauces that it gives Chinese sauces and shames American sauces in particular but Chinese sauces too that I sort of I don't know that sort of slick glossy texture which is not what we're going for in this dish we want it to be kind of dry finally a little bit of honey so sweet vinegary salty hot and numbing those are those are kind of all the qualities that were going from this dish oh that was probably bout a tablespoon or so of honey and here we go all right I got my walk the highest seat you can get this what this burner is pretty hot so I'm lucky in that regard but you can easily do this at home if you're doing it at home on a home burner use the highest heat you can possibly get let your wok preheat and actually you know what I'm doing I'm uh this is a peanut oil and these peanuts are actually raw so I'm gonna be what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give them a little fry so that they cook you can easily use a dry roasted peanuts I'm gonna let those sizzle up a little bit let me get a slotted spoon go slotted spoon that was peanut oil by the way peanut oil is really great for stir frying it has a high smoke point it it's actually great for deep-frying it well so hot it's a highly saturated it's a vegetable fat but it's more similar to some animal fats fats in that it's highly saturated and generally things when you fry things and highly saturated fats they come out crisper than if you fly it fry them and lower saturated fats so that's why you know say like duck fried duck fat duck fat fried potatoes are really crispy and delicious whereas sort of all things you fry in olive oil tend to soften up a little bit faster all right we're just gonna let these sizzle a little bit good this wok I have by the way is a 14-inch wok that I bought in 2000 I think something around there it's about 20 years old I got it I got it from Target I think it's typhoon brand I'd have no idea if they still make that brand I really doubt it I got it from Target but I have a couple other walks some I recommend a 48 for home I recommend a 14-inch wok at least and I recommend one with a handle and a helper handle some stuff some styles of walks have two handles like this for home cooking I find it much easier to use the kind that has a handle on both end a helper handle and then I do recommend a flat bottom wok for a home range if you have a wok burner setup where you have like your kind of ring with flames when we're all from all sides then the traditional wok with a round bottom is better but for a home setup flat bottom wok all right these peanuts are getting nice and golden done and the trick with any any stir-fry of course is that you want to have everything ready to go because once you start cooking it's fast I'll take that off you for second so I can remove some of the oil I don't need quite Bao much all to start [Music] all right so I got a couple tablespoons of oil in there we get my chicken here get my chicken ready I got my aromatics chickens been marinating what like 15 minutes or so 12 minutes ideally you can let marinate for about 20 minutes so that it has time to the fattest sorry the protein is time to break down from the assault you've added which helps it's a juicier here aromatics in there gonna fry for just a few seconds just to infuse that oil and the chicken is going right in you don't want to let those aromatics cook too much because they'll start to burn and first switch to my actual spatula I don't know I'm using this spoon in it burnt aromatics don't taste good they taste burnt [Music] [Music] so if you have a really weak stove at home what I would recommend doing is cooking in batches so cook half the chicken take it out reheat just reheat your wok cook the other batch of chicken take it out reheat your wok add your add your scallions and peanuts back in cook them then add your chicken back in and add your sauce this burner is hot enough that I'm going to be able to cook it all in one go so once it goes in constant motion toss toss toss [Music] this one I'm going to add my aromatics in the garlic and my ginger blows my scallions man that smells good let's give our peanuts back in [Music] you're their sauce I'm gonna give it a little stir less one last time just to make sure that none of that cornstarch is settled to the bottom and it's all homogenized here [Music] all right we are done [Music] leaving my wife here [Music] there you go that is that's how you make lunch I don't have any chopsticks here I'm gonna I'm gonna no pork I guess I'm gonna eat with the spoon well let's try this anyway [Music] it was good museu let's get some better light shows hot a little bit spicy a little bit numbing a little bit sweet vinegary got those crunchy peanuts chicken is tender and flavorful have some good stuff sorry my dog's not here I can't Peter I'll bring some home for later bye bye guys see you tomorrow

Channel: J. Kenji López-Alt

Views: 538,564

Rating: 4.9506927 out of 5

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Id: 0KkkPZIDvj8

Length: 20min 55sec (1255 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 10 2020