The Kung Pao Chicken Recipe I Wish I Always Had

little bites of tender chicken breast coated in a silky savory sweet but complex sauce the scent of garlic and ginger crunchy peanuts a hint of numbing spiciness today guys we're making the one the only kung pao a dish that is not only a true sichuanese classic but that has also taken the world by storm with some slight variation in authenticity perhaps when i lived in china this is the first dish i truly fell in love with and i'm definitely not the only one because being a favorite chinese dish of more non-chinese people than actual chinese people kung pao chicken is nothing short of a bridge between cultures friends we have made it to part 5 of my series on sichuan food sponsored by ming river baijiu the first brand to bring sichuan's traditional distilled spirit to people outside of china more on that later now let's talk kung pao chicken kong pow i understand this is very fun to say but obviously that's just the english translation with the chinese original name being you gotta love chinese voice over speakers let's hear that again okay now let's deconstruct that many chinese dishes have pretty surprising names when you translate them directly and gung boji ding might be one of those the literal meaning would be something like palace guardians chicken cubes and i mean we get where the chicken cubes come from but what's the palace guardian well that actually refers to one very specific person who carried that title and that is ding bao jin a 19th century chinese government official who is said to be behind the creation of this dish i mean he wasn't like cooking it himself at least i don't think so it was probably more like his personal chefs made it for him because dingbar jen was kind of a big deal while kung pao chicken is most famous in its sichuan version sweet and sour with chilis and sichuan peppercorns there are many regional variations of this dish all over the country i feel like i'm saying this in every second video there are always regional variations of everything always ironically dingbat jen himself is not actually from sichuan but from neighboring kuwait joe province where spicy chicken is definitely a thing and also the final gong boji ding was most likely influenced by his love for another certain chicken dish from shandong province where he has spent a large chunk of his life not gonna lie it's a bit tricky to accurately trace the history of this dish but what we do know is that dingba jin ended up working in sichuan's imperial government where his kung pao chicken eventually becomes the dish most people think of today another little curiosity is that during china's cultural revolution period that started somewhere in the 1960s references to old imperial china were well very counter revolutionary and straight up evil so naming a dish after an imperial palace guardian big no-no so the term kung pao ji ding gets changed to hula ji ding just spicy chicken cubes so boring right but once people realized the cultural revolution maybe wasn't the best idea they just changed it back so as much as i love history i love cooking chinese food even more and kung pao chicken is one of these dishes that i've cooked a lot i've even made a cooking video about kung pao chicken before i was making cooking videos on this channel but the last time i've actually done some research on kung pao chicken must have been like 10 years ago so to whip up a super authentic version i'm gonna do what i pretty much always do for phase one research which is checking out around 10 different recipes and then seeing where these recipes overlap and where they can offer some special tricks maybe and then combine and synthesize them into like one master recipe which usually gets me pretty close to where i want to be so here we go [Music] okay it's actually not that difficult a lot easier than what i remembered it to be it's pretty much just a straightforward stir-fry so here's what i found out you start out with chicken breast and you cut that into small dice like one to two centimeters in size and then you marinate that in a little bit of salt soy sauce yeah aka shaoxing wine and some corn starch which is going to tenderize it a little bit then you prepare the sauce which is equal parts sugar and vinegar with again a little bit of joe aka charging wine a little bit of soy sauce both light and dark then a tiny drop of sesame oil and finally a bit of corn starch dissolved in some water which this time is gonna be there to thicken the sauce with the chicken marinating and the sauce is ready we got to get the other ingredients prepped and that's basically just chopping up some ginger and garlic then also chopping up the white parts of scallions not the green part just the whites and then we're prepping some chilies de-seeded ideally because nobody likes chili seeds and we're gonna also add to that a little bit of sichuan peppercorns oh and then of course there are peanuts that's a given but then you're pretty much ready to stir-fry and you know this is one of these recipes where when you've done all your prep it actually comes together in like just a few minutes with that being said i think i'm ready to put some gumball jitting in my mouth so let's go [Music] [Music] not gonna lie after all that research and then smelling all of these amazing ingredients while cooking i have built up some pretty high expectations so let's see how this goes this is my take on the original authentic sichuan gongbojidim without further ado without question this is the authentic dish i once fell in love with chicken peanuts a well-balanced sauce a bit of heat i'd say this was an 8 out of 10 and on any other day this would absolutely have satisfied my kung pao cravings but what kind of food channel would this be if we stopped at good right it's so much more fun to strive for perfection even if we starve trying so you know in that spirit let's see what we can do to take this one to the next level so critically speaking there are a few things that i fell short on according to my own standards first of all the chicken was tender yes but not as tender as some of the chicken i've had in china there's room for improvement here the sauce is good though and while i do love the classic addition of peanuts to this dish i've also heard of variations with other nuts that i think would elevate the flavor oh and let's talk about heat gumbao ji ding is not a very spicy dish but with just a few chili sprinkled in i could have easily gone for more on the other hand as is often the case with chinese dishes not every single thing in there is meant to be eaten so let's see if we can get rid of the ginger and sichuan pepper debris in the dish without sacrificing their flavor though oh and have you noticed the color i mean in restaurants i used to get an almost ruby red gongbonji ding while this one is just kind of brown i mean i know that in chinese restaurants usually something like ketchup is involved to get the color or you know to be honest probably even food coloring but i wonder if there's a way to get around that and last but not least all the traditional sichuanese versions i researched were just all about chicken and peanuts and that's it but as i mentioned before there are quite a number of different local varieties of this dish right there are always local varieties of every dish and i got into kung pao chicken big time when i lived in beijing where i think it's not just popular to add cucumber to kung pao chicken yes and a stir fry but also carrots but to be perfectly honest i think we gotta draw a line somewhere you know i mean i don't want no carrots in my pow if you know what i mean anyway i have quite a few ideas on how to fix all of the above issues to make some andong style gung bao ji ding and i'm going to show you how after a quick word from this video sponsor ming river baijiu we just cooked up an authentic sichuan dish and bringing the authentic flavor of sichuan to you is what ming river baijo is all about following some century-old traditional techniques to this day but that is not where they stop because combining tradition with new approaches is something they're very passionate about best example their original baijo cocktails for this episode i tried a drink called pear in red where we mix ming river baijo with dark rum red vermouth and pear juice i like my drinks pretty cold so after a good icy shake this drink was right where i wanted it to be it's strong but it's good i do like how the flavor of the pear plays with the exotic tropical notes of ming river it's an unexpected but pretty good match if you guys want to get to know the super unique flavor of the original sichuan baijiu in a cocktail or just as is ming river baijo is certainly the way to go and it's available in the united states united kingdom and europe check out the link in the video description to find out how to get your hands on the good stuff and now back to kung pao chicken so i've made a plan to address all of my gripes some ideas i'm pretty optimistic about and some you know i'm not so sure so here's what we're gonna do first let's talk melt-in-your-mouth tender chicken for which i'm gonna use all the tricks at my disposal [Music] we're starting out by pounding the chicken which already breaks down its structure by sheer mechanical force once cut into cubes we then brine the chicken with salt and baking powder for at least 30 minutes the salt will increase the juiciness and flavor while the baking powder is a chemical tenderizer that further loosens up the meat's structure the only downside to this method is that adding as much baking powder as we need is gonna introduce some ammonia-like bitter flavor but fortunately there's an easy workaround for this simply rinse your chicken very very well after the brining and you'll literally wash away all of those issues then we make a marinade from chinese cooking wine soy sauce and corn starch mixy mix and drop our marinated chicken into a pot of boiling hot water wait what's that okay so this is a pretty cool chinese technique called velveting which is commonly applied to proteins to keep them nice and juicy for stir fries it's normally done with oil but works almost as well with water the theory is that if you cover your meat in a starch-based slurry and then drop that into hot liquid the starch is going to gelatinize and form a protective layer that basically locks in a lot of the juices and at the same time creates a coating that is really good at absorbing the sauce it will eventually get fried in later on speaking of sauce for that one i had to venture outside the box and then outside of that box again what i did is i based it on red syrup which i made by reducing 250 milliliters of cranberry juice to around three tablespoons if you think this is crazy you are probably right but you know reduced fruit juice basically just tastes sweet and sour which is what we need and i don't think you're gonna taste a lot of the cranberry in there like at all so i did have to tweak the other ingredients to maintain similar levels of sweet sour and salty without adding too many dark liquids which would taint the color for sure kind of counterproductive but the highlight was certainly the addition of ginger juice you get this by grating a piece of ginger finely and then simply squeezing out the juice with your bare hands now we got a pretty promising red-ish sauce we also got rid of those nasty ginger pieces and we can move to the other thing we wanted to get rid of sichuan peppercorns but again we don't want to sacrifice the flavor my solution making an infused oil by gently frying sichuan pepper and chili flakes and a bit of canola for a few minutes a voila even more red color more chili flavor and no more pieces of sichuan pepper for the other ingredients i upgraded my peanuts by adding in some cashews and almonds for variety and finally i grabbed the cucumber and de-seeded it before slicing it into fine cubes so what do you think are we going to be able to improve kung pao chicken let's see about that i mean the idea of trying to improve a century-old classic of chinese cuisine is of course well it's a ridiculous idea but i tried anyway i'm not sure if all my ideas exactly panned out but there's only one way to find out so without further ado let's try a bite of the original andong gong baogi ding 2.0 and see how good it is this was certainly not the same dish as before the chicken was unbelievably tender velveting was definitely a win and so was the addition of ginger juice and chili sichuan pepper oil i could joyfully eat every single spoon without fear there's a smoky note from the chili oil that definitely wasn't there before and i'm loving it so good as for the cucumbers it might not be the traditional sichuan style but to me they are not optional for kung pao chicken they elevate it about the nuts i'm not sure if the almonds did very much but cashews are both a traditional upgrade and really delicious the one thing that definitely didn't work as planned was the whole red color idea first my dish looked eerily pink so much so that i couldn't resist adding a drop of dark soy to make it look more healthy i guess which kind of brought me back to where i started in terms of color so next time i'll just stick to the really tasty original sauce recipe so overall i think i did bring a few useful improvement ideas to the table at least when it comes to my style my personal preference of how i like kung pao chicken you can find my final recipe in the video description as always but you know in the end you are the king of your gong bao ji ding i hope i inspired you to cook and play around with this really amazing and very easy to make dish that once got me into chinese cooking and with that being said thanks for watching and i'm gonna see you in the next one

Channel: My Name Is Andong

Views: 177,941

Rating: 4.9314866 out of 5

Keywords: my name is andong, lear nine tiny, andong, kung pao, kung pao chicken, kung pao chicken recipe, how to make kung pao chicken, gong bao ji ding, 宫保鸡丁, kung pao chicken panda express, sichuan food, wok, chinese food, chinese recipes, chinese cooking, how to make, kung pow chikcen recipe, kung pao sauce, authentic kung pao chicken recipe, szechuan chicken, peppercorn sauce, stir fry, stir fry recipes, szechuan sauce, authentic, food recipe, panda express but better, street food

Id: TcDbXQMa744

Length: 14min 44sec (884 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020

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