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Kung Pao Chicken

Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • 4-6 chicken thighs boneless skinless, cut into thumb sized pieces

Marinade

  • 1 teaspoon oil
  • 1 tablespoon Chicken Stock/ White Wine/ Chinese Rice Wine Shaoxing
  • 2 teaspoons soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon cornflour

Sauce

  • 1 teaspoon cornflour
  • 2 teaspoons water
  • 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar or Chinese black vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon white sugar
  • 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
  • 1 ½ tablespoons light soy sauce

To assemble

  • 4 tablespoons neutral oil for frying
  • 1 thumb sized piece of fresh ginger peeled and sliced
  • 4 cloves garlic sliced
  • 2 mild red chillis cut in half and seeds removed, cut into 3 cm pieces
  • 3 spring onions cut into 2 cm pieces
  • 1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns or pink peppercorns *optional
  • 3 teaspoons roasted peanuts
  • Steamed rice to serve

Instructions

  1. In a medium sized bowl, add the sauce ingredients and mix well. Add the chicken, cover, refrigerate and marinate for 30 minutes.
  2. In a small bowl, mix all the sauce ingredients together and set aside.
  3. When you are ready to cook the dish make sure you have everything ready as cooking in a wok is speedy.
  4. Take your wok and place on a medium to high heat, add 2 tabelspoons of oil and cook the chicken until cooked through, around 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. You may need to cook the chicken in batches. Set the chicken aside.
  5. Clean the wok with a paper towel and add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil, heat the wok until very hot. Add the ginger and garlic, cook for 30 seconds, stirring occasionally, add the red chilli’s.

  6. Stir fry for around a minute then add the spring onions and peppercorns if using.
  7. Continue cooking for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.
  8. Take the chicken and sauce and add to the wok. Stir constantly. Turn the heat off when everything is nicely coated in the sauce. Add the peanuts, stir and serve with rice.