Authentic Chinese Cooking 102 - Kung Pao Chicken (Or, You Might Also Need Protective Eyewear)

In some cases, making mistakes can actually turn out better than if you had just done everything correctly.

In the case of me attempting to make my first Chinese dish ... this was definitely NOT the case.

Now, before you go getting the idea that I had no idea what I'm doing ...

I'd say you're probably right.

But still! I had a recipe! Which I followed! And minus my one, small, itsy bitsy, teeny tiny moment of lack of forethought, everything went pretty smoothly. Oh, right, make that two small, itsy bitsy, teeny tiny moments of lack of forethought..

What I made: 宫保鸡丁 (gong bao ji ding - kung pao chicken)
Style: Sichuan (Szechuan)
Main ingredients: Chicken, chilis, scallions, and peanuts
Spice: level (Mine = very spicy; To Chinese people = mild to moderately spicy; To the average American palate = moderate to intensely spicy)

So I made Sichuan style which has peanuts - I've done some research, and many chefs state that this is not genuine at all, that true kung pao chicken shouldn't have ANY nuts. But I can tell you that in the Sichuan restaurants in Beijing, this is how they serve it. And it rocks. Almost every American I've met loves this dish.

I used the recipe that can be found here - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90206117 - but for the sake of readers' convenience, I'll need to repost it anyway.

Okay, here's the recipe, along with my commentary.

2 boneless chicken breasts, with or without skin (about 2/3 pound total)
3 cloves of garlic and an equivalent amount of fresh ginger
5 scallions, white parts only
2 tablespoons peanut oil
a generous handful of dried red chiles (at least 10), preferably Sichuanese
1 teaspoon whole Sichuan pepper
2/3 cup roasted unsalted peanuts

For the marinade:
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
1 teaspoon Shaoxing rice wine or medium-dry sherry <-- At the time, I had no idea there was rice wine sitting in my refrigerator. I used dry sherry. No fracases ensued, so I can only assume that this works just as well.
1 1/2 teaspoons potato flour or 2 1/4 teaspoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon water

For the sauce:
3 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon potato flour or 1 1/8 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon light soy sauce
3 teaspoons Chinkiang or black Chinese vinegar <-- I didn't have this, so I had to use regular vinegar. Disaster did occur, but not because of the vinegar and not during this dish. Tune in in a few weeks to read the Bourbon Chicken disaster miracle.

1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon chicken stock or water

1. Cut the chicken as evenly as possible into 1/2-inch strips and then cut these into small cubes. Place in a small bowl and mix in the marinade ingredients.

2. Peel and thinly slice the garlic and ginger, and chop the scallions into chunks as long as their diameter (to match the chicken cubes). Snip the chiles in half or into 2-inch sections. Wearing rubber gloves, discard as many seeds as possible. <-- If you've bothered to read my previous posts, you'll remember this picture.
Remember how I said I had to wrap my fingers with Saran wrap because I didn't get rubber gloves? Yep. At least I didn't touch my eyes, but it was REALLY difficult to get those little buggers out of those peppers. Sometimes you can just cut the pepper in half and dump the seeds out, but most of the time I had to poke and prod at the damn pepper with the tip of my knife, all the while the Saran wrap on my fingers was either getting in the way, leaving my fingertips devoid of feeling and causing me to stab myself, or unwrapping and making me feel like the clumsiest person on earth.



3. Combine the sauce ingredients in a small bowl — if you dip your finger in, you can taste the sweet-sour base of the gong bao flavor.

4. Season the wok, (I have no idea what this means. I just put in the oil)then add 2 tablespoons of oil and heat over a high flame. When the oil is hot but not yet smoking, add the chiles and Sichuan pepper and stir-fry briefly until they are crisp and the oil is spicy and fragrant. Take care not to burn the spices (you can remove the wok from the heat if necessary to prevent overheating). YOU MIGHT ALSO NEED PROTECTIVE EYE WEAR! AND A NURSE'S MASK! *Sigh* Okay. I probably burned the chilies and the pepper. I couldn't really tell - except for the BURNING, DYING sensation in my eyes and lungs! The room got really smoky VERY quickly and the oil in the air from the chilies irritated my eyes, which started to tear up, and the smoke severely bothered my lungs. I definitely sounded like I had tuberculosis, whatwith all the coughing and hacking I did there in the kitchen. I had to ask my roommates to come help me finish cooking because I couldn't stand over the wok anymore. Which, btw, they were not happy about..

5. Quickly add the chicken and fry over a high flame, stirring constantly. As soon as the chicken cubes have separated, add the ginger, garlic, and scallions and continue to stir-fry for a few minutes until they are fragrant and the meat is cooked through (test one of the larger pieces to make sure). This part went just fine. However, my next unfortunate moment came when I added a pre-made, pre-seasoned jar of kung pao chicken sauce with peanuts to the dish. I was so afraid that the taste wouldn't be authentic that I not only made my own spicy sauce, but then added some Chinese (translation: spicy as hell) sauce to the dish. 

6. Give the sauce a stir and add it to the wok, continuing to stir and toss. As soon as the sauce has become thick and shiny, add the peanuts, stir them in, and serve. Ladies and gentlemen, the people I was cooking for, namely the same roommates that had to save me from the pepper fiasco, were sweating at the table as we ate. I kid you not. Delicious, it was. Spicy as hell, also it was. (Yes, that was Yoda speak) So.. don't do that. If you are going to add an already-spicy sauce to the dish, don't think you'll maintain the spice by adding more even if you are making more sauce to go with it. That totally didn't work and while we all LOVED the dish, I think we went through 3 or 4 glasses of water each at the dinner table (we were out of milk, if my memory serves me correctly).

So, still successful, and this recipe is actually a GREAT one. Just ease up on the chilies and the Sichuan pepper if you don't like spicy foods (I love them, so I actually adored the dish the way it was, but yes, my roomies were sweating) or can't handle serious spice. But then again, I doubt you'll all make the mistake of adding Chinese sauce to your dishes. So you should be find.

The cure for cancer lies in my desk drawer.

Lies, you says.

NOT LIES! I says.

Okay, maybe not a cure, but here are all the things that this particular item is supposedly good for:

- preventing cancer

- preventing tooth decay

- improving skin

- improving muscle and organ function

- boosting the immune system

- weight loss

- rheumatoid arthritis 

Can you guess what this is? I'll give you some time... ::Whistles the "Jeopardy" theme.. ::

...

... <-- A little extra time for good measure..

IT'S....

Green tea!  Yes, that's right folks, just your plain, ordinary green tea! Now, here's a little disclaimer: I've done all I can think of to try and make this post as humorous as possible. And while interesting, it's not very funny. Sorry. It seems that making fun of my self and recounting my mistakes is a lot more humorous than discussing the origins of tea (gee, wonder why?). So, I apologize for the lack of humor. I'm saving all of my best stories for later! And I don't have very many emails from Beijing - where all of the good stories come from. So, I don't want to give everything way too early. Bear with me, ok? This is still interesting. Yes, yes it is. Just you read and see.. >.<

In order to understand what makes it different from other teas, we first need to know the process of how tea is made.

First, all tea leaves (with the exception of added things like fruit pieces, flowers, etc.) come from the same type of plant: the Camilla Sinensis bush. There are 4 types, in general, of tea: white, green, oolong, black (red in Chinese)

Green tea is rich in catechin polyphenols, particularly epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG is a powerful anti-oxidant which is twice as powerful as resveratrol, the antioxidant found in red wine that promotes heart health and combats smoking and fatty diets.

The difference lies in the amount of oxidation/fermentation that occurs. When the tea leaves are snapped, crushed, etc. they begin to oxidize (like an apple that you've bitten into and left sit for too long). The white teas are not fermented at all, and in fact the leaves are picked when they are still buds - not fully mature. The green tea is steamed to preserve its beneficial properties. Oolong the next, and black the longest.

Oxidation destroys these antioxidants, which is why oolong and black teas have lower concentrations.

To read more about the benefits and studies, visit these web sites:

The Miracle of Green Tea

How Green Tea Prevents Cancer

Green Tea and Weight Loss (the actual title is too long to list here)

Tea and Cancer Prevention Fact Sheet

So go get some green tea!

NOW!          :)

Authentic Chinese Cooking 101 - Basics

Find Joyce Chen. Love her. Hold her. Cherish her. Tell her how much she means to you. Because without her book, I'd be dead in the water. And you wouldn't have wonderful stories of my awesome cooking-gone-wrong incidents. And how sad would that be? Huh?! .. That was rhetorical, don't answer that ..

I don't know when this was published, which is really depressing since I own a copy of it, but it's amazing. Looks like it was published in .. 1963? I found it in a free book bin at my college - it was material from the public library that had been pulled from the shelves and taken out of circulation. LUCKY ME! Complete with instructions on what cookware you need, Chinese ingredients, good American substitutes, and chock-full of interesting tidbits, it's an all-around I'm-not-a-Chinese-person's Chinese cookbook. (And, p.s. I just bought a new wok yesterday from Ikea for $8. :: Arms held akimbo, head in the air, chest puffed out proudly.. ::)

Funny enough, I just checked out her web site where she advertises that her sauce products have *NO MSG ADDED!* .. One of the staple ingredients of her cookbook is MSG. Haha!  Funny. 

Actually, it's a great flavor booster. And according to several articles I've read, really not a genuine health concern. If you're interested, read the Wikipedia article on monosodium glutamate.

Now, to be fair, I'm not a huge fan of Chen's recipes, but she is from a different region of China than the food I am used to. While her ingredients are definitely genuine, if anyone can tell me how authentic/Americanized her recipes are, I'd be very grateful! 

BUT ALAS! I digress! Where I was I? ... ... ... Oh, right. So. Buy this book. If you can find it.

WHAT YOU NEED TO BUY

Most, if not all of the ingredients that Chen recommends are pretty authentic and readily available from your local Asian grocer, except the dry sherry. Since they seem to be the most common, these are the ingredients that you should have readily available in your pantry/fridge/broom closet/under the floorboards/wherever you keep your food:

light soy sauce

dark soy sauce

rice wine (you probably should get rice wine vinegar, too, or black Chinese vinegar, or both - I neglected to get either and have been using regular vinegar)

dry Sherry (usually used in place of rice wine but has slightly different flavor, so I bought both. Chen uses the dry sherry in her cookbook)

sesame oil (MUCH CHEAPER from a local Asian grocer than your regular grocery store!!!)

peanut oil

dried, red chilies

Sichuan peppercorns

fresh ginger

fresh garlic

cornstarch (from your local grocery store)

rubber gloves (I'm not kidding)

 <-- Chilies

<-- Sichuan peppercorns

Now, we need to have a short lesson on dried chilies. Just because they are dried (dehydrated) does NOT mean they are any less dangerous than in their normal state. Do not, in any way, shape, or form, attempt to touch them with your bare hands. Many recipes call for crushed chili/red pepper seeds, meaning you need to cut the chilies in half and dump out the seeds. CAUTION: THIS IS A MOST DANGEROUS ENDEAVOR AND IS NOT TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY! THE FAINT OF HEART SHOULD NOT ATTEMPT THIS TASK!

Seriously. If you touch them with your bare hands, seeds or whole pepper, and then touch your mouth, eye, or any other sensitive part of your body, you will die. And washing your hands after handling them doesn't help.

What actually happens:

your eye stings, turns red, and waters for about ten to fifteen minutes, with lingering stinging sensations after.

What you think is happening:

YOUR EYE IS ERUPTING IN A MASS OF BLOOD, TEARS, EYE GUTS, AND EXPLODING INTO A MIGHTY CONFLAGRATION THAT WILL SOON LEAVE YOU BLIND AND COMPLETELY UNRECOGNIZABLE!!!!!!!!!

This is where the rubber gloves come in.  Mistakenly having thought my father owned a box of latex gloves, I didn't buy any. HUGE mistake. I had to wrap my fingers with cling wrap (which doesn't work, by the way) in order to work with the chilies last time I used them.

So, if you don't want to end up looking like this-

then I suggest you invest in some rubber gloves.

Anecdote from Beijing #1

So, I've decided that since I couldn't decide what the heck I wanted to blog about for my first entry, it seemed fitting to take my first mass email to family, friends, and lovers enemies alike from my time in China. I studied intensive Chinese there for almost 6 months, from February - July, 2008. Right before the Olympics, which was an incredible experience. And the greatest thing of all is that YOU ALL HAVE TO READ ANYTHING I DECIDE TO WRITE!  BWWWWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (that was an evil laugh, in case you didn't catch that..) Right. Back to China. Oh, I've taken out the boring parts and distilled it down to the cool stuff, adding in commentary when appropriate to offset my new-found intelligence about Asia that is clearly displayed in these posts.. So here goes!


****************
March 5, 2008

Hello everyone!

Let's see now...At some point this week, I visited the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, neither of which were particularly fun.  There are so many solicitors that bother you (especially if you're white) that it really ruins the entire experience, and anything besides walking into and standing in the middle of the Forbidden City costs extra money.  Not sure if I feel like paying that just yet.  After visiting the Forbidden City, we crossed the street to Tiananmen Square and Mao's Mausoleum. Considering that the Mausoleum was closed, we had to find something else to do with out day. So, we sat down in Tiananmen Square and pulled out our map to try and figure out where we wanted to go. While we sat there, a group of five or six elderly Chinese men who looked as if they might be from the countryside wandered over to us and stopped directly in front of us. We raised our heads to find them standing there and blatantly staring at us as if we were some exotic creatures behind glass. After we all exchanged a few nervous chuckles, they meandered off, waving, and taking great care to look back at us as much as possible.  Apparently white people are delicacies in Tiananmen Square (?!?!?)..

On Wednesday, two friends and I walked a 40-minute walk to the Beijing Zoo and spent most of the day there. It cost us 15 yuan - slightly over 2 dollars - and we spent about three hours there and didn't finish getting through the entire thing.  It was quite beautiful, despite the fact that the grass was brown and the trees barren.  The habitats were not small beyond belief despite the common theory - they were roomy, for the most part.  I plan to go back and see the aquarium, which promises to be amazing (or so I'm told).  

At the bird exhibit, an older man with a huge, telephoto lens camera who was taking pictures of some of the exotic suddenly turned as we walked by..

*CLICK.. CLICK.. CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK*  

Yeah.. He had turned his camera on us for at least twenty pictures, and followed us with his obnoxiously enormous lens as we walked by.  The fact that my buddy had pale-as-ever skin and curly, blonde hair didn't help - It was a strangely flattering and unnerving experience all at the same time.

On Thursday, my friends and I visited a Korean hot pot restaurant.  It was amazing.  We sat down at a large table (there were 9 of us) and there were two large copper buckets set down inside the table.  The waitress put two bowls of hot coals in each bucket, and put a cast iron lid over the coals.  Then she brought out a plate of raw beef and cooked it all for us right at the table, dropping it into little bowls of some AMAZING sauce.  Along with the meal was some sort of vegetable and rice dish which comes in a cast-iron skillet, sizzling at the table, with an over-hard egg on top (I later came to find out from some Korean friends that this is called Bi Bim Bop, and I give it TWO THUMBS UP!!  *wiggles thumbs enthusiastically*).  The waitress mixed it all in front of us and served it with a delicious, red, spicy and sweet sauce.  Last, we had a fantastic, spicy soup with mixed vegetables and meat.  And the meat, get this - heart of dog.  Actually delicious, though I'm not one for heart meat in general.  Okay, to be fair, I didn't eat much, just a few pieces to satiate the interest factor.  But overall, not bad.  That was the day we took a novelty trip to the Beijing Wal Mart: the largest in the world. Wow. Not only did I get lost FINDING IT (how, exactly, does one get lost trying to find the world's largest Wal Mart? I still don't really know..) but got lost inside it as well..

On Friday, we did nothing of great importance, and wandered around a huge shopping mall (more like a building for haggling) and Wangfujing Avenue, the most popular tourist street in Beijing.  Haggling, street vendors, and fraudulent items abound all at terribly inflated prices.  A few of my friends tried spit-roasted chicken hearts, starfish, and scorpion.  Needless to say, I wasn't feeling that adventurous (my friend later came down incredibly ill for about two days).  Then we jumped on a bus trying to find goodness knows what else, and ended up being the only signs of life left on the bus, which drove into a shady part of town we adequately named the Kidney Removal District.  Then we got off at a subway stop. No kidney loss, so I guess we can call that a successful day.

Today I spent most of the day at the Silk Road, which is actually a huge building filled with 5 floors of incredible shopping and a 6th floor dedicated to pizza, and Beijing duck.  The sellers in each shop resort to silly sayings as you pass by, including, "Pretty lady, you come in, I give special discount!"  And my all-time favorite, "Look-a, look-a!"  This particular phrase is used by even those who speak almost fluent English.  Among other tactics, they'll grab you and sometimes pull you into their shop as you pass buy.  Haggling, in short, is great sport.  One could easily spend all of his savings money buying things for the mere fun of haggling.  Some vendors, however, will simply shut you down and say, "bye bye" if you quote them a price that's too low.  I was surprised the first time this happened to me, and then realized it was most likely another trick to make you raise your price.  However, I don't appreciate someone ripping merchandise out of my hands and throwing it back on a shelf when they ask me what my best price is, so I decided to simply leave the shop.  Either way, it was great fun.

Tomorrow I find out what classes I will have, and they shall begin Monday at 8:00 a.m.  Unfortunately, the university seems to be very harsh on and particular about attendance, class participation, and grades so I won't be able to goof off and take weekend trips as much as I'd like to, but all in all I'm sure I'll like my classes and it won't be so bad.

That's all for now!

再见 !

- Liz

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What am I doing, exactly?

For some reason which I have yet to decipher in this jumble I like to call my mind, I have decided to study China and Chinese for my career and life's work. Not a particularly well-informed decision at the outset, it turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life - it has brought me more interesting opportunities and experiences that I can even begin to describe. Which is exactly why I have started this blog. During my first attempt at cooking Bourbon chicken (yeah, yeah I know, not exactly a truly Chinese dish, so sue me!) I made several mistakes glorious discoveries and realized that I had no one with whom I could share this plethora of wisdom. So, I will do my best to, once a day or once a week, post either a story from my times in China, or something interesting that I read or learned, or some new advice on Chinese cooking, all the while doing my best to make it interesting and lighthearted the whole way through. As of now, I think I'll be posting every day, but this will definitely change once the excitement of a new toy (e.g. my new blog) dies down and I have less to write about. It will probably be once a week.

ENJOY!