I bought myself a copy of Kylie Kwong’s latest book My China: Stories and Recipes from My Homeland
After reading the book and checking out the pantry for the necessary ingredients I decided to make Kung Po prawns (Kylie uses chicken pieces in the book) to be served along side her caramelised potatoes.
Kung Po is a classic dish in Szechwan cuisine, originating in the Sichuan Province of central-western China. The dish is named after Ding Baozhen (1820-1886), a late Qing Dynasty official. Born in Guizhou, Ding served as head of Shandong province and later as governor of Sichuan province. His title was G?ng B?o or palatial guardian. The name “Kung Po” is derived from this title.
Sichuan food has a reputation for being very hot and spicy, which to a certain extent is true, Kung Po for example is a truly fire-eating experience but at the same time it’s flavoursome and delicate too.
In keeping with Sichuan cooking habits I didn’t use the pre-roasted nuts Kylie recommends but went for the ‘plain’ version and fried them in the chilli oil before adding the other ingredients, at this stage I added a sliced red pepper too for colour and a little more texture to the dish.
On serving I scattered the dish with ground Sichuan peppercorns, Sichuan cuisine is famed for bold flavours, particularly the spiciness resulting from liberal use of chillies and “numb” or “tingling” flavour of this type of pepper.
It is unclear precisely how chilli peppers were introduced to Szechwan, a landlocked, mountain-ringed region in western China. The most accepted view is that Indian missionaries brought chillies with them during their travels along China’s famous Silk Route – a series of pathways originally constructed during the Han dynasty for military and strategic purposes, that subsequently gained more importance as a major trade route. Another theory is that they were brought in by Chinese merchants trading with Portuguese and Spanish sailors at various seaports. In any event, today chilli peppers are an indispensable feature of Chinese regional cuisine. Dried peppers are frequently used in Szechwan dishes, while cooks favour fresh peppers in the neighbouring province of Hunan.
The potato dish didn’t seem very typical of China to me, somehow roasties by another form just didn’t seem quite right but the idea still seemed gorgeous, so gorgeous they had to be my first (or at least joint first) recipe to try. The sourness of the tamarind along with the sweet brown sugar and gentle warmth of the ginger and pepper was absolutely amazing, the perfect sticky mouthful. These will be eaten here time and time again. A word of warning though, do not do as I did and try cook them in the actifry (cutting out the par boiling stage), unless you want to spend hours cleaning the caramel out of the rotating paddle 
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Kylie’s a fabulous cook who loves her food. She could care less about health, but I have heard her complain that her mother tells her off for using too much soy and oil! As you said, if we’re presented with the recipe we can make our decision as to if we want to make adjustments. These two starting recipes sound amazing! I love the way Sichuan pepper affects my mouth and always have some Sichuan Pepper and Salt mixed and ready to add:) I don’t have this book, but I hope to see more recipes to tempt me in that direction (hint hint:)).
Coby I’ve heard Kylie saying that about her Mum too. Hint taken btw, but there are so many recipes in the book I want to try so it won’t be so hard to take up your request
George, this looks so amazingly good!
Yum! I do enjoy Szechwan cuisine. In fact, there used to be a place on Yonge St. here in Toronto that produced what IMHO must have been the best Szechwan cuisine this side of the Yangtze! Kung Po is a true classic. TY!
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