Perfect but Easy KUNG PAO CHICKEN at Home l Better Than Restaurants

hello from seoul let me guess you got some takeout and brought it home for your dinner but when you open the box unlike your expectation there's cold flavorless and even overcooked chicken however what

if i say you can make perfect kung pao chicken at home within

20 minutes from scratch

what do you say today we are making kung pao chicken one of the most popular chinese takeout

dishes the best thing about this is you can't easily get the ingredients and with a little bit of technique you can make a restaurant quality kung pao chicken at home you will need chicken

green onion garlic ginger peanuts and dried chilies that's it really simple right but for a bit of color i'm gonna add some bell peppers here you don't have these but you have other vegetables

such as celery or zucchini don't worry about it you can use them too no problem at all first let's prep the vegetables normally we use green onions to make our dish more fragrant but in kung pao

chicken there are mainly for the color and the texture so instead of cutting it up too finely let's chop them into nice little chunks about a half inch would be perfect otherwise they easily get mushy when you

stir fry with other ingredients next garlic smash 3 cloves of garlic and finely mince it with your knife you can use a grater or just chop it into small pieces without smashing it but i like this way

better because this little action will make your dish more fragrant so try this little technique you will be surprised and it makes you look super cool this time ginger

finely means 5 grams of ginger if you have a tough critic and don't want to get harsh criticism because of this teeny tiny amount of ginger then bring your grater and grate it as fine as you can or

adding a little bit of ginger squeeze can be a good option too for information it's not my story guys just listening next dried chilies wipe the dust with paper towels

and cut them into chunks about the same length as green onion would be nice since mine is not too spicy they're gonna just add a little bit of heat and make my chicken more fragrant but if you put something like

pepperoncino or vietnamese chili pepper as much as i did sorry about that you will see yourself screaming in the bathroom the next day so please add it after considering how spicy they are

also removing the seeds is a good way to reduce to spicy levels so if you don't want it to be too spicy make sure to discard the seeds as i said earlier the peppers are mainly for

color so i highly recommend using two colors green and red these guys will make your photos instagram worthy you're welcome now let's talk about the chicken i'm using boneless chicken thighs but if you

prefer chicken breast because you need to get ready for summer please go ahead and use that but i'd rather go for this because it's more flavorful of course i would hate myself in the past

while doing heavy squats i would cause 300 grams of chicken thighs into bite sized cubes so they can be about the same size as the green onion by the way if you still worry about the

summer then please remove the skin and fat from the chicken that's gonna help now for chicken put some salt and pepper one teaspoon of mirin half of an egg white one teaspoon of dark soy sauce and give it a good

massage if you don't have dark soy sauce you can just go for regular soy sauce also instead of mirin i was supposed to add chinese shaoxing wine but i don't have it at the moment so i replaced it

with mirin so if you don't have mirin or shaoxing wine just use any kind of cooking wine or skip it no problem at all once the chicken gets a little sticky and one and a half tablespoons of cornstarch

and mix everything together and lastly add a half tablespoon of cooking oil and give it a good mix fyi the reason why i added cooking oil here is it prevents your chicken from

sticking together or sticking to the bottom of the pan while cooking pretty good tip right alright let's set it aside and move on to the sauce in a small mixing bowl put one tablespoon of sugar and one and a half

tablespoons of vinegar if you want it to be sour you can add a little more vinegar and if you prefer sweet chicken you can add more sugar remember there's a guideline in cooking but that's not an absolute rule

something so please taste it and add more or less to suit your taste keep adding 1 tbsp of soy sauce and 1 tbsp of mirin again any kind of cooking wine

should be fine so don't worry about it and then a half tablespoon of oyster sauce a half teaspoon of chicken stock and a half tablespoon of corn starch here i need to add three tablespoons of

water but looks like the bowl is too small for that so let me change it quickly and add three tablespoons of water lastly a half tablespoon of chinese chili bean paste at this point some of you might ask

aaron why do you add chili paste now aren't you supposed to stir-fried with oil yes you're right they'll be more delicious but if the cooking process gets much easier and simpler because of this i

dare say your cooking will become much more fun trust me it will lastly let's add a half teaspoon of dark soy sauce for some color and give it a good mix it doesn't really affect the taste so if you're okay with

color you can't skip it you'll be fine without it now let's get to cooking put a generous amount of oil into a wok and place it over medium heat i'm using a little more than usual to show you how it works but you can add a little less

than this once it reaches 120 degrees celsius or 250 degrees fahrenheit add in the chicken as soon as you add in all the chicken change the heat to high heat and please

make sure to stir it occasionally so that they don't stick together some of you might want to ask aaron why do you deep frying i thought we are going to stir-fry the chicken i'm glad you asked actually this is not

ordinary deep-frying it's more like blanching the meat in the oil at low temperature and this little technique will create an outer layer of the chicken and that is gonna help keep the juice

inside and make your chicken more tender if you're using chicken breast i highly recommend this technique that will bring your chicken to the next level but to be honest this is not necessary but to show you a restaurant quality

kung pao chicken i'm doing it here we don't have to wait until it gets dark brown so once it's cooked take it out and drain the oil this time let's stir fry the peanuts

heat up the pan over low heat add a little bit of cooking oil and some peanuts as you toast it around you will see they slowly turn nice and golden brown if you cook this way they will become

more crunchy and fragrant you want to know one secret actually i was supposed to deep fry these before the chicken but i totally forgot sorry about that it happens sometime all the ingredients are ready now put

some oil in the wok and place it over medium heat once the wok is nice and hot add some dried chilies and when it starts to turn light brown add the chopped garlic ginger and stir fry them once they are

fragrant add the chicken into the wok and change the heat to high heat and then stir everything together since we cooked the chicken already we don't need to worry that the chicken might be undercooked

just 30 seconds will be enough now let's set the sauce and stir-fry for about 1 minute since we put the corn starch in the sauce it will slowly get thicker as it cooks add the bell peppers green onions

peanuts and mix all together here the vegetables should be nice and crunchy so make sure to toast it around over high heat as fast as you can that's the key if you

overcook that will become mushy lastly let's drizzle a half teaspoon of sichuan peppercorn flavored oil with this you can fill the authentic vibes without shicha peppercorns

but if you don't want it to be too spicy or numbing you can't skip it no problem at all now let's transfer it to a serving plate it's done what do you think it's way much simpler than you think

right wanna know what it tastes like let's cool our taste tester isn't it so beautiful i can't resist it youtube [Music]

[Music] if you are allergic to peanuts you should definitely replace it with other things like cashew nuts yeah i think cashew nuts will definitely work you should really try it

don't skip it [Music] more bites [Music] foreign today

i showed you how to make a super simple but restaurant quality kung pao chicken at home as you can see it's really easy and simple so there's no reason not to try this

from now forget about take out and try it if you do you're gonna taste the best kung pao chicken that you ever had alright this is it for today and i'll see you next time