The Sinosphere · Volume 33, The Mala Basin
Kung pao chicken / Gongbao jiding (宫保鸡丁)
Sichuan (Shandong-Sichuan origin disputed)
Illustration
- Time
- 30 minutes
- Researched
- Researched from 96 sources in the brief
Traditionally credited to Ding Baozhen, a Qing official from Guizhou who became governor-general of Sichuan in 1876. His household chef's dish, made first in Shandong where Ding earlier served, used a sweet bean sauce; once Ding moved to Sichuan the sauce was swapped for doubanjiang and a little sugar, and after his death Sichuanese chefs refined it into the dish known today. Because Ding held the honorary title "junior guardian of the crown prince", shortened to "gongbao", the dish carries his title rather than his name. The origin point itself, Shandong or Sichuan, is genuinely disputed in Chinese sources and is not adjudicated here.
As tradition built it
Serves 2 to 3 as part of a shared meal. About 30 minutes.
Ingredients
For the chicken
- 300g diced chicken thigh
- a pinch a pinch of salt
- a pinch a pinch of white pepper
- 1 egg white
- 1 tsp cornstarch
- a final coating a final coating of oil
For the sauce (wan zhi, bowl sauce)
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 3 tbsp black vinegar
- 1 tbsp light soy
- ½ tbsp dark soy
- 1 tsp cornstarch
- ½ bowl water
To finish
- 80g raw peanuts, toasted
- 10 to 15 dried chillies, cut into segments
- 1 tsp (scant) Sichuan pepper
- 5g ginger, 8g garlic ginger and garlic
Method
- Marinate the chicken with the salt, white pepper, egg white and cornstarch, sealed with a final coating of oil.
- Toast the raw peanuts.
- Mix the sugar, black vinegar, light soy, dark soy, cornstarch and water together in advance for the sauce.
- Bloom the dried chillies and Sichuan pepper in oil on low heat for about ten seconds only, removing before either turns bitter, then fry until the chillies reach a deep jujube red.
- Add the ginger and garlic, then the marinated chicken, stir-fried hard and fast.
- Add the sauce, tossed through quickly, then finally the peanuts, folded in off the heat so they stay crisp.
What a modern chef changes
A sharpened scorched-chilli-lychee architecture
Rung 2
Method
- Dry the dried chillies further in a dehydrator at 60°C for twenty minutes before toasting, so they char evenly rather than scorching unevenly with any residual moisture.
- Grind a small amount of toasted Sichuan pepper fresh in a dedicated spice grinder immediately before blooming it, rather than using pre-ground pepper, since its numbing compounds fade within months of grinding.
- Build the bowl sauce with black vinegar reduced separately by a third over gentle heat first, concentrating its sourness so less total liquid is needed and the glaze clings tighter to the chicken rather than pooling in the pan.