Mirin Kung Pao Chicken

Following to the previous mirin-glazed salmon, here comes Mirin Kung Pao Chicken as my subsequent mirin-based dish under my mirin project (the project's name is just popped out wkwk).

Basically this is the type of conventional Kung Pao Chicken. The kind that you'll find anywhere in a Chinese restaurant. However, mine is minus the shaoxing wine and sichuan peppercorn. The shaoxing wine is substituted with MIRIN hehe, and the sichuan peppercorn is substituted with crushed black pepper because I couldn't find the sichuan peppercorn. Since the idea to make this cikin just came last night, I haven't really prepared for the ingredients and use whatever sits in my pantry. For example, didn't have a chance to buy the peanuts or the roasted peanuts, I then used salted roasted cashew. Learning from Julia, I tried to get rid of the saltiness by boiling the cashews in water for just a minute. The saltiness has definitely gone, but the cashew is a little bit mushy not that crunchy anymore. Well, at least it isn't salty (Im salty enough so my food does not have to be salty wkwk whatevs). Based on this experience, I think in preparing a Kung Pao Chicken, there are 3 main sections i.e.: (i) marinade the chicken, (ii) sauce preparation, and (iii) stir-frying each ingredients. Marinade the chicken shall be the first so that we may use the 20 minutes to prepare the sauce and other ingredients that quite vary from the light and dark soy sauce, mirin, ginger, garlic, rice vinegar, dried chilli, white pepper, cornstarch, scallion etc. Even the marinade process involving several ingredients with specific measure. If this is your first, I think you should probably take this sectioning into consideration, for purposes of having a more systematic cooking process that certainly will reduce stress and errors.

Marinade with mirin, salt, cornstarch, ground white peppers etc.

Chop chop mince mince slice slice

Put this and that liquid, cornstarch, perhaps sugar or another mirin - to taste.

Subsequently, sear the cikin - set aside. After that, stir-fry the other ingredients and followed by the cikin, sauce and lastly the peanut (in my case is cashew). May I say that it's officially my mirin project? LOL yha we'll see how long will it last.

Highlighted issue: We want to have fun in the kitchen, so having a systematic method is very beneficial. For the love of food, please eat in moderation (again, this is me to me, my body full of butter).