the finest kung-po chicken recipe

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(serves 2 though it claims 4)

250-300g chicken meat (8-10oz)
1 medium green bell pepper
1 spring onion
a good chunk of ginger finely sliced (half inch squared say)
4 dried chillis, seeded and shredded
2 tbsp or what seems right, yellow bean sauce
tbsp rice wine or dry sherry
125g roasted cashews (4 oz)
sesame oil
rice to serve (Arboreo if using the below method)

Cut the chicken into sugar lump sized cubes and fry in veeeeery hot oil til adequately cooked, then remove into a seperate bowl.

Slice the pepper into similair sized chunks, and slice the spring onion finely.
Stir fry the pepper, spring onion, chillies and ginger for around a minute, then add in the already cooked chicken and yellow bean sauce. Add the wine to taste while reheating the chicken, again frying for about a minute. Finally add the cashews and serve, sprinkling sesame oil to flavour.

Foolproof good fluffy rice method:
My Bro came up with this, soak the rice in normal temperature water for as long as possible (up to an hour) so it goes slightly soft. Rinse well, and boil in a small amount of water. If possible rinse and replace the boiling water twice. Boil like this for around 6-10 minutes, then rinse three times and put the rice in the pan and leave it covered to steam some more, for around 20 minutes while cooking. This will leave you with perfect fluffy rice and little effort.

This is a superb and very fast recipe. It is certainly one of my regulars.

[AugustWest]

Re: the Rice recipe

Little effort? You call that little effort?  Dayum.  That procedure seems like a huge pain in the ace to me.  I've never understood the why rice is difficult though.

All I ever do is put 1 cup rice in 2 cups cold water.  Add  1 tsp salt and few drops of oil.  Cover. High heat until it boils, then immediately drop the burner to LO.  Simmer for 15 minutes.  Eat the lovely, fluffy rice.

Also, I didn't think you were supposed to rinse rice.  I thought that washed all the nutrition off of it.

The actual Kung Pao part of the recipe sounds great.  Kung Pao has long been one of my favorites.

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Well yea, I was meaning the Kung Po bt of it for the little effort. That way of doing rice is a little longwinded, but trust me it is reaaally worth it!
But, it is still equally good normally, since the main part of the dish is the chicken.
And I don't know about losing nutrition, but done that way it helps remove the starch better. Because you're leaving it in water for a long time, or then leaving it having boiled off most of the water, you need to to remove the starch. I always tend to rinse my rice through once when I drain it if I cook it the low hassle way. But well, that's just something I picked up from my parents cooking style.

[Choop]

Ultra Simple Rice (slow version):

Preheat oven (gasp!) to 350. In one casserole dish, place 1 part rice, two parts water, and small amount of butter (1 pat per cup rice). Cover, put in oven, let cook undisturbed for one hour.

Larger amounts may need more cooking time.

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That reminds me of a way we found of doing it in the microwave a whle back, only used it a couple of times, but it was much the same method but done in the microwave faster. The flavour of the waves however was a little offputting!  It just wasn't the same.