Chinese food is popular in its taste and appearance. People from other countries may feel cooking Chinese dishes is a complex process. However, it doesn’t have to be that hard.
The following recipe introduces a traditional Chinese dish, Gong Bao Chicken. It is a typical Sichuan food. (Sichuan is a province of China)
According to baidu.com, the name of Gong Bao Chicken is derived from the originator. The person who created this dish, Baozhen Ding, was an officer working for the last dynasty of Chinese history, which was about 200 years ago. Ding was interested in cooking, and he created and improved many dishes, one of them being this chicken. As his job title was called Gong Bao, people named this dish Gong Bao Chicken.
Stephanie Wang, a senior majoring in marketing from Hong Kong, shared her thoughts about Gong Bao Chicken, “As I like Sichuan food and its spicy tastes, Gong Bao chicken is the typical Sichuan flavor dish I really like. The appearance of it is very colorful, meat match vegetable and nuts, it is also very healthy. One feature of this dish is people can control the spicy tastes during the cooking based on their own flavor.”
For those people who are interested in cooking it themselves, it is not too complicated to make.
Time: 20 to 30 minutes
Yield: 2 to 3 servings
For the chicken:
- 2 boneless chicken breasts (11 to 12 ounces total), without skin
- 3 garlic cloves
- An equivalent amount of ginger
- 5 spring onions, white parts only
- A handful of dried chilies (about 10), or 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- 3 ounces (75 grams) roasted peanuts
- 1 cucumber
- 1 carrot
For the marinade:
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoon light soy sauce
- 1 ½ teaspoon potato starch, cornstarch, or flour
For the sauce:
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- ¾ teaspoon potato starch, cornstarch, or flour
- 1 teaspoon light soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 1 tablespoon water
Directions:
- Cut the chicken into small cubes, put them into the bowl and mix well with marinade
- Cut the cucumber and carrot into small cubes also, make the size a little bit smaller than chicken
- Peel the garlic, thinly slice it and the ginger. Cut spring onion into chunks the same size as the chicken cubes. Cut the chilies in half
- Mix the sauce well in a bowl
- Heat the pan over a high flame, then add oil in it. Once there is little smoking over the oil, put chilies, garlic, ginger, and stir fry them until their color getting a little bit darker
- Add the chicken inside and stir fry over a high flame until the meat have separated and cooked through
- Add the carrot inside and mix well with chicken, continue stir fry them until the carrot are almost cooked done
- Add sauce into the pan, continuing stir fry them. As soon as the sauce has become thick and shiny. Turn off the flame, add the cucumber, peanuts, and quickly stir several times until they combine with chicken and carrot. Then the dish is ready to serve.