Name: Kung Pao Chicken
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 4 to 6 whole dried chiles (optional); 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce; 1 pound/450 grams boneless, skinless chicken thighs or breasts, cut into strips; 1 tablespoon chili sauce with garlic; Steamed jasmine rice, for serving; 2 celery ribs, cut on the bias into ½-inch/1-centimeter slices; 1 tablespoon soy sauce; 1 tablespoon dry sherry or Shaoxing wine; 1 (8-ounce/225-gram) can water chestnuts, drained and cut into medium dice; 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar; 1 (1-inch/2.5-centimeter) ginger, grated or roughly chopped; 4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped; 2 tablespoons vegetable oil; 4 to 5 scallions, thinly sliced; 2 tablespoons black bean sauce; ¾ cup/150 grams unsalted peanuts; 2 teaspoons cornstarch whisked into 2 teaspoons water (optional); 1 teaspoon sugar; 8 to 10 shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and thinly sliced

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

From Scratch

By Michael Ruhlman

Published 2019

About

A staple of my teenage and college years was kung pao chicken from what was, at the time, one of the authoritative books on Chinese cookery, The Chinese Cookbook, by Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee. The base combination of bean sauce, hoisin sauce, and chili sauce with garlic has been a stalwart main