Chinese food never ceases to surprise me, I never get tired of it. Obvious bias aside, there’s so many different regions (probably from the vastness of the country) and so many types of cuisines that are so drastically different from each other that it’s hard to become jaded with the food. I’ve primarily stuck to Cantonese food but I’m trying to branch out into more of the Northern Chinese style food.
One particular style I’ve been reading a ton about is Szechuan cuisine. There’s a couple Szechuan restaurants around Boston (Sichuan Gourmet and Sichuan Garden) that I really like but I’d never even tried to make some of the food that they offer. One dish in particular that I’d love to try sometime is lightly fried fish fillets in a nice spicy/oily sauce.
So which brings me to today. I recently picked up a copy of Fuschia Dunlop’s Land of Plenty, considered to be one of the top cookbooks in Szechuan cuisine. While light on pictures (I think picture based cookbooks are the most appealing. Not only do you get to have a reference as to how the food should look, you can figure out if it looks tasty enough to try out in the first place!), she provides very descriptive notes on the history of many dishes as well as her own personal background on said dishes.
Typically, Szechuan food tends to be a bit on the oily side, which is one reason I never really thought about trying to cook it often. But reading through the book, one of the big points mentioned is that for the dishes that use a lot of oil, chillies, and whole peppercorns, diners typically use chopsticks only with the dish, grabbing the pieces of food and shaking off the excess oil. For those dishes, the sauce (read: oil) typically isn’t spooned over one’s rice. But here’s the problem…I love sauce and I hate wasting something that I went through the trouble of making. But I figured I should try it anyway.
Kung Pao Chicken
Time : 1 hour
Serves 4 w/ rice and side vegetable
Ingredients:
- 2/3 – 1 lb boneless chicken breast
- 4 cloves garlic, sliced thin
- 1 inch piece of ginger, sliced thin
- 5 scallions, chopped
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 12 – 15 Dried chili peppers, seeds removed
- 1 tsp roasted ground sichuan pepper
- 2/3 cup roasted unsalted peanuts
Marinade:
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 tsp ShaoHsing rice wine
- 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- 2 tsp corn starch
- 1 tbsp water
Sauce:
- 3 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp corn starch
- 1 tsp dark soy sauce
- 1 tsp light soy sauce
- 3 tsp Chinkiang vinegar or balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp water
Method:
1. Cube the chicken and mix marinade. Marinate chicken while preparing other ingredients.
2. Combine sauce ingredients.
3. Heat a frying pan over high heat. Add 2 tbsp oil. Add chillies and stir fry briefly until fragrant.
4. Add chicken and stir fry. When lightly browned, add ginger, garlic, and the scallions. Stir fry until the chicken is cooked through.
5. Add the sauce and sichuan pepper. Stir until sauce thickens. Add peanuts, toss briefly, then serve.
Notes : Adapted from Fuschia Dunlop’s Land of Plenty
