There’s something fun about learning to cook a dish in the country of its origin. Imagine making pasta in Italy, pad Thai in Thailand, tandoori in India, burgers in America… (Here’s my post on making poisson cru in Tahiti>>)
The crazy wet market. Appearances are deceiving!
So it was that I found myself enrolled in the Chinese Cooking Workshop in Shanghai. I was part of a media group on an Air New Zealand famil (that’s what we call familiarisations when we go to a fancy destination to write about it and entice you to go) and with our local guide we weaved through the busy back streets of this city of 23 million people to the very inconspicuous entrance, 4 journos and our hosts.
English was barely spoken and we were a few minutes late so chef seemed a bit out of sorts. Suddenly we were trailing behind him back out the gate and striding down the path again not entirely sure what was going on. The market!
Righto, looking left and right and trying to keep up while not getting bowled by passing vehicles, we crossed roads and marched on and suddenly came upon what looked like an office block.
I was not prepared for the wet market. “Stick together like sticky rice,” he shouted to us through his translator then proceeded to do his best to lose us in the melee inside.
With barely time to take it all in, we passed counters groaning under the piles of fresh veges, so many types of tofu I never knew existed, and meat. Meat of all types. Some of the meat was still alive. (Don’t spend too long with the caged chickens or you’ll be scarred for life, or even with the live fish and frogs. CHOP.)
We squeezed into the tiny kitchen to toss our woks
Then we were racing back down the road to our classroom where bowls, chopping boards and knives were laid out. We made two dishes, kungpao chicken and spicy tofu (which also had minced pork, much to the vegetarians amongst us dismay). So here’s how to make the tasty and quintessential kungpao (aka kongbao) chicken:
Ingredients: (these portions look a little on the teeny side to me, so I guess it’s just for 1 serve. Your help is welcome in the comments below!)
100g chicken breast, peanuts (to add later), 1 tsp sugar, 2 tsp rice wine, 2 Tbs dark soy sauce, 1 tsp chili paste, 1 tsp vinegar, 1.5 tsp corn starch, 1 Tbs ginger, 1 Tbs garlic
Method:
Bash chicken breast with a mallet, then dice into 1 cm cubes. Season with salt and combine with sugar, cooking wine and starch.
In a wok fry ginger, chopped garlic, chili paste, cooking wine until fragrant. Add diced chicken, a little water, sugar, dark soy sauce, vinegar and some starch. Toss around and add fried peanuts and chopped dried chillies to serve.
Kungpao chicken with chillies