Stir-Fried Pumpkin with Black Beans and Ginger & Kung Po Chicken

It has been some months since I have cooked from Kylie Kwong's fantastic book, "My China, A Feast for the Senses" and once again it did not disappoint. What I love about Kylie's recipes is that once you have the basic ingredients in your pantry it is just a matter of buying your fresh produce. All of the recipes use different combinations of a small selection of sauces and flavour enhancers. So stock up on brown rice vinegar, brown sugar, chinese black vinegar, dark soy sauce, garlic, ginger, light soy sauce, peanut oil, sesame oil, oyster sauce, salted black beans, shao hsing wine, sichuan peppercorns and sea salt and try some of Kylie's amazing recipes. All of these ingredients are easily found in Asian supermarkets. If you have not tried any of Kylie's recipes you really should as they are all very simple and I have not made one yet that wasn't extremely yummy. Her food is so different from Chinese as we know it and so much better!

Last night I made Kung Po chicken which is a stir fried dish of chicken thighs, ginger, dried red chillies, brown sugar, roasted unsalted peanuts, light soy sauce, chinese black vinegar and sichuan salt and pepper. To make sichuan salt and pepper (which my husband loves to use to season all sorts of dishes) you just dry roast 1 part sichuan peppercorns and 3 parts sea salt until the peppercorns are fragrant and start to pop. You then cool the salt and pepper mix and grind it to a powder in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Sichuan peppercorns are the dried berries of the pickly ash tree and when you eat this salt and pepper it makes your tongue tingly and slightly numb.

The second dish I made was thinly sliced stir fried pumpkin with ginger, salted black beans, shao hsing wine, brown sugar, brown rice vinegar, light soy sauce and sesame oil.

I served these two dishes with steamed jasmine rice.

Yum!

Rating for meal 8 out of 10.

If there is one Kylie Kwong recipe you really should try it is Mrs Jang's Fried Eggs. Do yourself a favour and make them for breakfast some time. Basically they are eggs cooked in oil and topped with oyster sauce, white pepper, chillies and shallots. Sounds weird but tastes amazing. Oyster sauce works really well with eggs!
You can find the recipe at this link http://www.abc.net.au/kyliekwong/recipes/s952065.htm