Kung Pao Chicken - Satay Kingdom, Leftbank

I wasn't intending on eating and talking about Kung Pao Chicken from Satay Kingdom next, as far as I understand its a Chinese dish, so it was a bit of a surprise to see it featured on the menu of one of Wellington's well known Malaysian eateries.

To be honest I usually avoid Satay Kingdom, sure its cheap and the service is fast but the food just isn't as good as other places about town.  Its not as if we are short on options when it comes to Malaysian food either, here's a rough list just off the top of my head of places that i've been to:  Kopi Tiam, Serai Heaven, KK Malaysian, Rasa, Satay Village, Satay Kingdom, Satay Heaven, Satay Kajang, Istana Malaysia, Oriental Kingdom, Pratha 2 Go, Roti Chenai, Kopi.  

For whatever reason Satay Kingdom is where I found myself for dinner, and not really wanting noodles or curry or satay for that matter, I decided what the hell, i'd give their take on Kung Pao Chicken a whirl.  But let it be said at the outset, that this isn't the Kung Pao chicken that i'm used to.

For starters, there are no peanuts!  Oddly, as a bit of a peanut hater, this is the part that I missed the most.  Then the chillis are different, there are loads of different vegetables, and the sauce isn't as dark either.  However, just because something is different, it shouldn't mean that its inferior.

Unfortunately, in this case, it actually does mean its inferior.  I think my own version of this dish surpasses it in many ways.  The chillis used were hot yes, but didn't have the deep earthy flavour of the normal dried red ones other places use.  The sauce was sweet, but it wasn't salty enough for me, I think it needed a lot more soy.

I'm in two minds about the vegetables, I guess they do help round out the dish and make it more of a meal - otherwise it would just have onions, peanuts & chicken.  But I think they were the wrong type of veges.  Carrots would work, as they have a natural sweetness to them, and perhaps bamboo shoots might be a good addition, but the green beans were just additional water & cauliflower with its delicate flavour often comes off on the bland side when competing with other more powerful tastes.

I did really like the crunchy barely cooked onions though.  I'm thinking of adding a sweeter variety, perhaps red or white rather than the usual brown, as an optional garnish the next time I make my version.  I still want a base of deep caramelised onions, but a textural difference might work well.

So, the overall verdict?  Well, i've given it 2/5 mostly because this just isn't what I think of when I read Kung Pao Chicken.  It wasn't executed poorly or anything, its just not quite right.  But let's be honest, if you're going to a place called Satay Kingdom, there's a hint in the name as to what you ought to be ordering instead.

Kung Pao Chicken - Tweaked Mama Chinese Recipe

So, if you've been following my hunt for Kung Pao Chicken you'll already know that my first attempt at cooking this dish was based mostly on the recipe I found from the Mama Chinese website. It was ok, but I knew that I could make it better and closer to the best version i've had from Quanjude in Melbourne.

One of the main deficiencies was the quality of the sauce. What i'm trying to get to is a thick, slightly sweet, syrupy sauce, dark & salty from the soy and with a deep earthy heat from the dried chillis. I thought I had figured out the main issue with this recipe and it seemed like it would be an easy fix.

For my second attempt i'd decided that the source of the sweetness should be the component that makes the sauce sticky and syrupy. I wanted to try using mollasses but couldn't find it anywhere, so instead used a couple of tablespoons of treacle.

This seems to have done the trick, but the main difficulty now is timing everything correctly & whipping stuff in & out of the wok so that the sauce reduces to a thick syrup without drying out the hunks of chicken.  Oh, and also remembering to pick up cooking wine in which to marinade the chicken in advance.

I'd say i'm pretty close but there are a couple of other adjustments i'd like to make yet before i'd be totally happy with the recipe.  I feel like it might need an additional vegetable of some kind, only I don't yet know what.  I'm thinking possibly sliced onions that have been heavily caramelised might be a go, but that will have to wait until next time!

Kung Pao Chicken - Mama Chinese Recipe

Armed with two different experiences of Kung Pao Chicken, it seemed logical that the next step was to try to make my own.  Other than the obvious ingredients - Chicken, Peanuts, Chillies & Soy Sauce - I really didn't know what might make a great home made version of this recipe.

This might not be a scientific method, but when I want to cook a dish that i've never cooked before I usually google the name, and look through the resulting recipes for a picture that looks either tasty or like the version i've had before.

My patience for this process is limited so that's probably how I ended up with this recipe:

http://mamachinesecooking.com/recipes/viewtopic.php?p=54

As you can see by the photo in that recipe, it doesn't really look like the dish i've described previously.  Where's the sauce?!  But in the absence of any other guide I figured it would be a reasonable launching point for my own attempts.

I should be honest here and note that while patience isn't one of my strongpoints, another is following recipes.  Whether it's forgetting to buy specific ingredients or just wilfully ignoring instructions i'm a bit haphazard at times.  The first attempt at this Mama Chinese recipe is no exception.

I ignored the steps with the egg white & corn starch, and because the sauce didn't seem dark enough I used brown sugar and then added some hoisin sauce.  I'd also forgotten to restock in the Black Vinegar department so ended up using Cider Vinegar instead, which was probably a bit daft.  Other than that I wasn't too far off the recipe & method, I even washed my peanuts - but I wouldn't bother doing that again.

The end result wasn't too bad.  In fact it must have been reasonable as I ate the whole lot.  But what I really wanted was the syrupy hot & soy flavoured sauce from my Quanjude experience and this recipe in this form really didn't get there.