Kung Pao Salad A La Cinnamon and Spice

First, Muneeba at http://anediblesymphony.blogspot.com/ awarded me with the One Lovely Blog award. My task it to pass this on to 10 new blogs I have found! So I will be gather my list of folks over the next few days, until then please go to An Edible Symphony and check it out!

Let me start by saying this makes a big salad. It easily serves 4 people very hearty dinner sized salads, VERY easily. You can use whatever veggies or lettuces you want, this is just what I used. Also, if you don’t eat meat I think if you used tofu for this it would be amazing.

The original Kung Pao recipe came from Reni over at Cinnamon and Spice, http://cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice.blogspot.com/ . I can’t tell you how much I love this recipe. I have made it about 4 times now. The other night I had everything I needed but the rice….go figure. I did have soba noodles, but that wasn’t quite doing it for me. You guys know I have been on a crazy salad kick… well I thought… why not. It was wonderful. Actually so good the first time I made it we ate it up like little piggies (I had brought ½ over to my folks for dinner…so don‘t judge!) and never got a picture. Sigh…I guess this just meant I had to make it again. Another side, is if you want to cut calories or cut hassle you can bag the soba noodles (they are surprisingly calorie dense). They don’t add a lot, but are good flavor catchers, but not necessary if you are trying to simplify.


Salad
1 zucchini ribboned
2 small carrots ribboned and chopped
1 bunch of green onion
½ bunch cilantro (remove the stems just add leaves)
½ head of broccoli blanched
2 heaping handfuls of spinach chopped
¼ package soba

Boil water and add soba noodles and cook to package directions, drain and let cool. Add all veggies to a bowl and toss.

Chicken
1.5 lb of chicken diced
3/4 cup roasted peanuts
4-6 fine slices ginger, each cut into quarters
3-4 cloves garlic, sliced
1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns(I use red pepper flakes)
1 tbs oil

Heat oil add pepper and fry the peppercorns for a few minutes until fragrant. Add the chicken, garlic, ginger, and onion. Stir-fry these to allow the flavor to come out, then add the peanuts. Take of heat and allow to cool.

Once chicken and soba are cool add to salad.


Dressing

2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons red rice vinegar
1 table spoon cooking wine


Wisk together and toss with salad. Eat…yummy.

Kung Pao

I don’t know what else to say about this other than, really folks you have to try it. It was so good, I had to beg my husband to leave me just a cups worth to have for lunch the next day. He did. I ate it for breakfast. I swear I couldn’t wait for lunch!!

I stole this from Cinnamon and Spice, you really MUST go see her http://cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice.blogspot.com/


I had been dying to make this recipe for weeks and kept forgetting to get certain things I needed. I finally got most of it and decided to make do with what I had on hand. That said, I used about ¾ of a teaspoon of red pepper flakes instead of the chilis and Sichuan. For me, my dish was great, but could have had more heat, so do what you want. Also I used regular onion, 1 bell pepper and 2 medium carrots diced. I just wanted some more veggies. Since I had more volume I doubled the sauce. I think however you could use a banana peel and this would still be amazing (yes it really was that good, don‘t know why, just good). So give it a try.

http://cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice.blogspot.com/2009/04/spicy-chicken-with-peanuts-or-kung-pao.html

Kung Pao Chicken
Spicy Chicken with peanuts
Gong bao ju ding
(adapted from Why the Chinese Don't Count Calories by Lorraine Clissold
page 109)

For the chicken
2 cups chicken breast
3/4 cup roasted peanuts
2 teaspoon beaten egg or egg white
3 teaspoon corn flour or cornstarch
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon white wine

Supporting vegetables
1 tablespoon spring/green onion(we added extra), cut in 1/2 pieces
3-4 cloves garlic, sliced
4-6 fine slices ginger, each cut into quarters
3-6 dried red chilies, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns(we used black)

For the sauce mix
2 teaspoon soy sauce
2 teaspoon sugar
3 teaspoon red rice vinegar
1 teaspoon cooking wine
1-2 tablespoon of a 1-2 cornflour and water mix(we used cornstarch)
1-2 tablespoon additional water
salt to taste
1 and 1/2 tablespoon oil

Brown rice, for serving over

Cube the chicken breast in small pieces a little bigger than the peanuts. Sprinkle them with
salt and wine and mix well with egg/egg white and cornflour. Make sure they are coated but not
sloppy.

Mix together the sauce ingredients.

To cook, heat the wok to a high heat, add the oil, swirl around, and fry the chilies and peppercorns
for a few minutes until fragrant. Add the chicken, garlic, ginger, and onion.
Stir-fry these to allow the flavor to come out, then add the peanuts.

Add the liquid ingredients (stirring first to dissolve the cornflour) and allow it to come to the boil stirring
gently. Let the sauce simmer for a few minutes, to thicken, and then add additional liquid until the sauce
reaches the desired consistency. Add extra salt to taste, mix well, remove from heat, and serve over rice
if desired.