China / Main
Gong bao chicken
Diced chicken with peanuts and dried chillies in a sauce where the vinegar matters more than the sugar.
Ingredients
- Chicken breast, in 2 cm dice500 g
- Egg white1
- Cornflour2 tbsp
- Roasted peanuts80 g
- Whole dried chillies8
- Sichuan peppercorns1 tsp
- Chinkiang black vinegar3 tbsp
- Soy sauce2 tbsp
- Sugar2 tsp
- Garlic3 cloves
- Ginger15 g
- Spring onion4
- Neutral oil3 tbsp
Quantities are auto-calculated from the original recipe as a guide. Items without numbers (e.g. “to taste”) are not changed.
Method 5 steps
Mix the chicken with the egg white, a spoon of cornflour, a spoon of soy and a pinch of salt, and leave it twenty minutes.
Mix the sauce in advance: vinegar, the rest of the soy, the sugar and the rest of the cornflour with two spoons of water. Keep it within reach — there is no time to mix it later.
Heat the oil and fry the chillies with the Sichuan pepper for twenty seconds, until dark but not black. Burnt chilli turns bitter.
Add the chicken and leave it alone for a minute, then toss and cook through — two minutes more.
Throw in the garlic, ginger and the white of the spring onion, then after half a minute pour in the sauce. It thickens in seconds. Off the heat, add the peanuts and the green of the onion.
