Kung pao chicken — Gong Bao Ji Ding — is one of the most internationally recognised Sichuan preparations but also one of the most distorted: the original uses whole dried chillies for smokiness (not chilli paste), Sichuan peppercorn for numbing (not optional), and a very specific sauce balance that is simultaneously sour, sweet, and savoury in equal proportion. The chicken is velveted (the Chinese technique of coating the protein in a cornstarch-egg white mixture before cooking) to maintain tenderness at wok heat.
- **Velveting the chicken:** Chicken breast, cut into 2cm cubes, marinated in egg white, cornstarch, and soy sauce — then briefly blanched in 160°C oil (or warm water with a small amount of oil) for 30 seconds until just opaque. Removed and added back to the wok with the final sauce. The cornstarch-egg coat protects the protein from direct high heat and produces the characteristic silky, tender texture. - **The whole dried chillies:** 10–15 whole Sichuan dried chillies (facing heaven chillies — er jing tiao) fried in hot oil at the beginning. They should darken to deep red-brown without burning — this darkening extracts their fat-soluble compounds into the oil that will flavour the entire dish. - **The Sichuan peppercorn:** Added with the dried chillies — briefly fried before any liquid. - **The sauce:** Soy, black vinegar (Chinkiang), Shaoxing wine, sugar — mixed before cooking. The vinegar provides the sour; the sugar provides the sweet; the soy provides the salt. The ratio: the three flavours in near-equal balance. [VERIFY] Dunlop's kung pao sauce ratio. - **The peanuts:** Added at the very end, off heat — retained crunchy. Decisive moment: The chilli darkening. When the whole dried chillies have deepened to a mahogany colour and the Sichuan peppercorn has released its fragrance — approximately 30–45 seconds in the hot oil — add the aromatics (garlic, ginger, scallion) immediately. One additional second of chilli in the oil at this point burns them.
Dunlop