Friday, March 12, 2010

Pei Wei's Kung Pao Chicken

A while ago I found a Kung Pao sauce at Lee Lee made by Wei Chuan and made up a batch of chicken. To my surprise and delight it tasted almost exactly like Pei Wei's KPC. I loved it. So I thought I'd share.
The directions are on the back of the bottle but let me give you a few quick hints. Kung Pao chicken is usually a spicy dish but I love the way Pei Wei does it with the peanuts, so my version is not spicy (plus I always have to keep the girls in mind). I won't put any exact measurements here since the size of your dish will vary depending on how many people you are planning on feeding, but generally you should have equal amounts chicken, veggies and rice. Plus, I think it's good to just get in the kitchen and experiment to get a better feel for cooking in general. You will need:

* Wei Chuan Kung Pao sauce
* chicken, cut into bite sized pieces
* peanut oil
* corn starch, mixed 1:1 with water
* pinch of salt
* carrots, sliced
* snap peas, whole
* dry roasted peanuts, unsalted
* brown rice, cooked

It's a good idea to get your brown rice going first, it takes a while to cook (2-3 times longer than white rice). While that's cooking, chop your carrots and chicken and mix your corn starch with water. Let the chicken rest in the corn starch mix while you heat up a few tablespoons of peanut oil in a wok/pan (if you use a pan use a deeper one that will have room for the chicken and veggies all together) over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot (this should only take a few minutes) add the chicken and stir-fry it until the outside of the chicken is white but it doesn't look done yet. Cover the top with Kung Pao sauce (for my family of 5 eaters I use about half the bottle). Stir-fry it for another minute or so, then add your carrots and snap peas. Stir-fry for another couple of minutes, enough to cover everything in the sauce with extra on the bottom for the rice (feel free to dump some more on if there isn't any extra).
Serve over brown rice and top with the peanuts. For extra wonderful flavor, eat with chopsticks. It does something to the food, I swear.

Let me know what you thought if you try it.

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