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Kung Pao Chicken

Authentic recipe for Chinese kung pao chicken. Fast, hot, delicious. Olympians may dream of fast finish lines and stirring national anthems. But me, after making this authentic kung pao chicken for last week's opening of the summer Olympics, I was dreaming of more kung pao chicken. Seriously, I couldn't wait to make it again and so I did, just three days later. The recipe comes from the food blog Appetite for China by Diana Kuan, a food writer who is 'eating, traveling and writing her way across China'. I was taken by the simplifications Diana made to her own recipe, how she made an authentic Chinese dish accessible in my Western kitchen. The sauce is a many-layered mahogany, sleek and pungent. The chunks of chicken are moist and tender. The peanuts add crunch and the fresh green onion adds contrast. Here I go again, dreamin' of kung pao chicken ... All except two of the ingredients are found in or easily substituted by most Western pantries. I found the