Seah's Spices ~ Kung Pao Chicken 宫保鸡丁

Kung Pao Chicken (宫保鸡丁) is one dish that I like to order when I dine out at Zhi Char Stall. I didn’t know that the version of Kung Pao Chicken with thick, spicy and sweet black sauce that I used to have for many years since young is not authentic until I tasted the original Sichuan version in a Sichuan restaurant in Taipei eight years ago.

The original Sichuan version uses Sichuan peppercorns. It is these peppercorns that give authentic Kung Pao chicken its distinctive numbing flavour which tasted totally different from our local version.

With the introduction of Seah’s Kung Pao Spices, you can now duplicate the original Sichuan Kung Pao Chicken at home easily. 

Seah's Spices is 100% locally made in Singapore since 1991. They are widely available at all leading supermarkets and local markets. The current products have already been endorsed to have no added preservatives and colouring. This new series emphasises on NO MSG added.

Seah's Kung Pao Spices come with two separate sackets. Even the flour that used for coating is provided (white coloured sacket). The flour makes the chicken very smooth and tender.

The suggested cooking portion for one pack of Seah's Kung Pao Spices is 300g of chicken (of course you can use more if you like). This is sufficient for a small family of 3-4 adults. I bought a pack of boneless chicken leg from NTUC, the pre-packed chicken leg is exactly 300g. This makes it even more convenient to prepare this dish.

I am sharing simple steps of how this dish is created.

   What you need:
  
   1 pack Seah’s Kung Pao Spices
   300g boneless chicken leg, remove skin and cut into bite size
   10g dried chili (use more if you like), presoak for min. 30 mins (or 15 mins if using hot water)
   1 onion, cut into 8 wedges
   ½ tbsp rice vinegar
   ½ Chinese cooking wine

   How to do it:

1. Coat chicken with the spices from the white coloured sachet and briefly fry in hot oil (not deep fry) until the chicken is 70% cooked (once the chicken changes colour will do). Set aside for later use.
2. Discard excess oil and keep only little bit of oil in the wok. Add onion and dried chili, stir fry till the onion becomes semi-transparent.
3. Return chicken to wok and add spices from the red coloured sachet, stir fry for another ½ minute, you may add a little bit of hot water to make it easier for the spices to combine with the chicken.
4. Distribute vinegar and wine evenly. Serve hot.   

Original Kung Pao chicken has peanuts in it. So feel free to add some roasted peanuts to make it even more authentic.

Besides chicken, you can also use other ingredients such as beef, prawns, rice, noodles or even tofu. Be creative and serve it on Procook serving dishes! (Visit www.procook.co.uk)

On top of the "Kung Pao Spices", this new series also include "Singapore Noodles Spices" and "Singapore Fried Rice Spices" as shown below. 

Please hop over and like Seah’s facebook page HERE .

I will be sharing my review of Seah’s Singapore Fried Noodles Spices in my next post. Stay tune!

(Update 1st Feb 2013: This post is sponsored by www.procook.co.uk. Sample of the Kung Pao Spice is given free for review by Seah. )