George Likes His Chicken Spicy

Kung Pao chicken is one of the fobbiest dishes out there. I mean that’s probably what you think of when you think Chinese food, along with, I don’t know, Orange chicken or something. I’m not sure how authentic it is. Would it be more correct to say it’s an American invention? I do not know! I am not familiar with the history of KPC. For all I know it’s had a long and celebrated history in the fobland. But I do know that I like Kung Pao chicken. So I decided to make it.

Ingredients: cooking wine, sesame oil, soy sauce, peppers, peanuts, chicken, green onion, garlic, and ginger. This is a really simple dish to make.

Cut chicken into bite size (well, or the same order of magnitude) and marinade in a mixture of–I used 2T soy sauce, 2T wine, 1T sesame oil, and 1T corn starch. Oh, I forgot to include it in the picture.

Half an hour later, we are ready to rock ‘n roll. No, that’s not how long it takes to chop up then garlic and ginger and green onion; that’s how long it takes for the marinade to do its thing. This is my whole mise en place! See, I told you this was simple.

I first fry the chicken in the nonstick pan, because… I don’t want it sticking to the wok. Because of the marinade, this part… hurt. It was popping all over the place. I mean, it’s not like it can do all that much damage, because the droplets that jump up aren’t that big, but it still stings. I need a bigger thing to stir with.

All done. That is a sexy brown!

Then, fry up the chilli, followed by garlic and ginger. I thought the kind of chilli they used for, well, these kinds of dishes were longer, but you know, there was a recipe for Kung Pao chicken on the back of the package, so I figure it must be right. I used only 6 things of chilli, which turned out to be not that spicy. Very mild. You wouldn’t have thought that from how they smelled as they were being fried, though. I got a runny nose from this.

After that you’re suppose to add the peanuts and let them roast for a while, but… I forgot. This part went by very fast, that’s why I only had time to grad a picture after I added the sauce. Then I added the peanuts.

Return the chicken, let the sauce thicken for a bit. After I turned off the heat, I mixed in the green onions.

Final moneyshot. I think this was supposed to be 2 servings, but I “accidentally” dumped all the food onto the plate. “Whoops.”

Epilogue:
As I was cleaning up, I spied a largeish spider hanging from the ceiling (from the light, in fact), mere feet away from my head! Upon this discovery I said in calm and reassuring manner, “Jesus fucking christ!” and then threw wads of paper towel at it in a pathetic display of poor hand-eye co-ordination.