What makes an authentic KungPao Chicken ?

[pcbilly]

Two version of Kunpao chicken are all using diced chicken. Personally, I prefer dark meat better. For the usage of Zi Ba pepper, Sichuan chefs call Zi Ba Chicken for Guizhou version Kungpao Chicken. If you notes one of the most popular dish in Grand Sichuan, Guizhou chicken is very similar to Zi Ba chicken.

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I prefer the dark meat too.

Can you list the Chinese name for Zi Ba pepper and how is it different from the Sichuan

peppers ?

[pcbilly]

Fascinating. But what about Sichuan Peppercorn? The "real" version doesn't have it either?

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The recipe from Guizhou as listed in New York Times has no Sichuan Peppercorn: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=Po...29&qpid=1065984

The Sichuan version obviously does use it.

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Link to recipe of the Guizhou version should be:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/dining/2...agewanted=print

[Qing]

糍粑辣椒 Zi Ba pepper

糍粑 (Zi Ba) means the Fried ricecake cake, and actually, it is a chlli pepper combination.

The Zi Ba pepper is a Guizhou standard seasoning. It has selects spicily but is not fierce. For process the fresh pepper, use clear water soaks , then enter the right amount spring ginger root, and pound with the garlic cloves together. So it looks like the fried rice cake.

Sometimes people add ground pork inside as well.

[pcbilly]

糍粑辣椒 Zi Ba pepper

糍粑 (Zi Ba) means the Fried ricecake cake, and actually, it is a chlli pepper combination.

The Zi Ba pepper is a Guizhou standard seasoning. It has selects spicily but is not fierce. For process the fresh pepper, use clear water soaks , then enter the right amount spring ginger root,  and pound with the garlic cloves together. So it looks like the fried rice cake.

Sometimes people add ground pork inside as well.

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Qing:

Once again, thank you for the information.

Guizhou food is not well known, in fact, I can only think of one dish - Sour fish Soup (hotpot).

Maybe you or someone from the region can give us an introduction.

William

[Qing]

Guizhou food is not well known, in fact, I can only think of one dish - Sour fish Soup (hotpot).

Maybe you or someone from the region can give us an introduction.

I think GuiZhou food is like my hometown food--Hubei food are both the sub-cuisines of Sichuan cuisine. Maybe we should open an other topic to talk about it, such as Big God-Mother Hot Sauce 老干妈辣酱, Mao Tai Liquor 茅台酒, and so on.

Let me say something biefly about the Sour Fish Soup 贵州苗岭(Mountain of Miao People) 酸鱼汤:

The Fish Sour Soup is ferments by the wild tomato and the glutinous rice, and it uses the Wu River fish which is around 5 - 6 pound large. It is a hot pot actually, for the amout of soup bease it contains, and the sour taste is fresh and smooth. It is lso a little bit like the sour soaked Korean vegetable soup.

At Grand Sichuan 34th Street Lexington, they have a prettey similar version of red fish soup. They use tilapia, and it tastes good.

[mediakzar]

We’re recently back from a trip to China that included 6 days in Guizhou Province. We only spent 1 night in Guiyang but made a point to try the Gong Bao Chicken at the Guixi restaurant as described in the NY Times article mentioned earlier in this thread. Here’s the link again: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/dining/23gong.html. Interestingly, the article makes a big deal about the recipe for the dish not being including peanuts (like Kung Pao chicken does) but makes no mention of the fact that it does include cashews. This dish was so good we came close to licking the platter.

We had a friend write out the Chinese for Gong Bao chicken so we showed the waitress that but other than that one dish, we had no idea what was on the menu. And since none of the staff spoke English, we just pointed at a picture on the menu for our 2nd entrée. It turned out to be a straw mushroom and lamb hot pot. It had an exotic citrus taste that we were later told came from a locally grown chili. It was hot but not so hot that we couldn’t enjoy the flavor. And it created a numbing sensation on our lips and tongue. This was obviously an expected effect for without ordering it, when the waitress brought our beverages, she also included a yogurt & aloe drink that soothed the numbing sensation. We experienced the same citrus chili flavor but without the same intensity in a chicken with chili dish one night in Shanghai. If you’re interested in having a look, we’ve posted a video showing the residue of the Gong Bao along with a more complete view of the hot pot at: http://crackle.com/c/Travel/Gong_Boa_Chick...%26fu%3D2259037.

The balance of our time in Guizhou was split between some ethnic minority Miao villages near KaiLi, the capitol of the Maio and Dong Autonomous Prefecture in Southeastern Guizhou, and Zhenyuan, a tourist town on a plateau in the mountains of the eastern part of the province. We had a couple decent meals at Zhong De Yuan Holiday Hotel, where we stayed in Kaili but to be honest, because of the language barrier, we never did get the name of most of the places we ate in Guizhou.

But the food was consistently great.

We got hooked on a local specialty, vegetable (mostly baby bok choy) and tofu soup. We enjoyed lots of other vegetable dishes including eggplant in chilies. We came to expect spicy without being super hot meat dishes. One interesting dish we tried a couple times was “Squirrel Fish.” It’s served as a whole fish in a sweet and sour sauce and unlike the sweet and sour we are forced to endure here in the States, this one wasn’t overpoweringly sweet. The name of the dish comes from the presentation rather than the variety of fish. The head is carved to resemble a squirrel and the body is scored in a cross hatched pattern that makes the flesh pop out in tiny squares when cooked.

Another dish we really enjoyed was a rice noodle dish that has a name that translates to something like “tiny ants” as the thin noodles were cut very small and served in a garlic and chile sauce.

In addition to other meals, on a couple mornings, we enjoyed a traditional Chinese breakfast of dumplings and vegetable in chicken broth in Zhenyuan as seen in this video: http://www.crackle.com/c/Travel/Breafast_D...%26fu%3D2259037

We’re usually pretty adventurous in our eating during travel but the only food stall we ate at during our 2-weeks in China on this trip was a snack of fried fish on the banks of the Wayang River near Zhenyuan. I was a little wary but we could see the fishermen catching the fish a few feet away so I figured it had to be fresh and I managed to get a quick whiff of the oil in the vendor’s wok before sitting down and it seemed fresh enough too so I gave it a shot. It was a simple dish of quick fried small fish (of several varieties) on a stick with the only condiment being a flavorful but relatively mild chilie powder. I would be happy to eat it again and am equally happy to report; my stomach suffered no ill effects of the snack. There’s a video of that at: http://www.crackle.com/c/Travel/Breafast_D...%26fu%3D2259037.

All in all, we were just blown away by the food in Guizhou and look forward to going back for another taste.

Fascinating. But what about Sichuan Peppercorn? The "real" version doesn't have it either?

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The recipe from Guizhou as listed in New York Times has no Sichuan Peppercorn: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=Po...29&qpid=1065984

The Sichuan version obviously does use it.

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Link to recipe of the Guizhou version should be:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/dining/2...agewanted=print

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[poppalarge]

First post, whoop! Hi all.

So does anyone have the "most authentic" recipe?

I'd like to have a go at this Kung Pao Chicken tonight.

[liuzhou]

Fuchsia Dunlop's Recipe from "Land of Plenty" (US title) or Sichuan Cookery" (UK title is as authentic as they come.

The recipe is online here.

Edited January 9, 2009 by liuzhou (log)

[poppalarge]

Fuchsia Dunlop's Recipe from "Land of Plenty" (US title) or Sichuan Cookery" (UK title is as authentic as they come.

The recipe is online here.

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Thanks

I nipped into town to pick up the Fuschia Dunlop book yetserday but it wasn't in stock in any bookshops. I've ordered it online.

[takadi]

Tomato sauce

[liuzhou]

Tomato sauce

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Don't be ridiculous.

[takadi]

Yea, you're right, I think ketchup tastes better