Grand Duke’s Chick­en with Peanuts (from Mrs Chiang)

This recipe has a fun­ny his­to­ry for me.  When I was just a girl­friend in 1987 (my good­ness, 30 years ago!), my future moth­er-in-law gave me a copy of “Mrs Chi­ang’s Szech­wan Cook­book: Szech­wan Home Cook­ing,” by Ellen Schreck­er with John Schreck­er.  It is filled with dev­as­tat­ing­ly deli­cious, authen­tic recipes, shared with the author and her hus­band, the trans­la­tor, by their Chi­nese house­keep­er and cook, Mrs Chiang.

When I first learned to cook with this book, I fol­lowed the recipes slav­ish­ly because I had absolute­ly no idea what I was doing or why, and I had no con­fi­dence (deserved­ly so!) in my abil­i­ty to make my own deci­sions.  Obvi­ous­ly, this sort of atti­tude changes once you get lots of expe­ri­ence in the kitchen, but some­times that change takes you too far.  That’s what hap­pened to me with this recipe.  I sim­pli­fied every­thing, skipped steps, added things to the sauce, added extra veg­eta­bles.  Grad­u­al­ly I made the final, fatal error of skip­ping the peanuts because my daugh­ter did not like them.

I went too far.

Yes­ter­day my hus­band asked me to make “real” Grand Duke’s chick­en.  Very lit­tle sauce, only red pep­pers for the veg­etable, and PEANUTS.  I advise you to do the same!  You can have your own idio­syn­crat­ic “stir-fry,” by all means, but some­times you need to respect the orig­i­nal.  (I’ve dou­bled this to serve 4 rather than the 2 I think the orig­i­nal recipe would feed, and I’ve sub­sti­tut­ed red bell pep­pers for the rec­om­mend­ed green, because green pep­pers are the dev­il’s work.)

This recipe takes up 3 1/2 pages in the cook­book!  I’ve sim­pli­fied the instruc­tions, but the results are the same.

Grand Duke’s Chick­en with Peanuts

(serves 4)

2 1/2 tbsps soy sauce

1/2 tsp sugar

2 tsps sesame oil

2 tsps Chi­nese cook­ing sher­ry or rice wine

2 egg whites

2 tbsps cornstarch/cornflour

2 large chick­en breasts, cut in bite-size cubes

4 scallions/salad/spring onions, fine­ly sliced, both white and green parts

3 tbsps peanut oil

1 cup raw peanuts (not roast­ed, not salted)

2 large red bell pep­pers, cut in cubes to match the chicken

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup peanut oil

10 cloves gar­lic, fine­ly chopped

1‑inch piece fresh gin­ger, fine­ly chopped

1 tbsp soy sauce

steamed rice to serve

(Mrs Chi­ang has you boil the peanuts and remove their skins, but I find this unnec­es­sary and sure­ly the skins are added fiber?  Sure, why not.)

From the soy sauce to the corn­starch, mix all these ingre­di­ents in a bowl large enough to con­tain the chick­en.  Mix well, add the chick­en and spring onions and set aside to marinate.

Heat the oil in a wok or pan until it shim­mers.  Add the peanuts and fry until browned and crunchy to taste (raw peanuts are very chewy).  Remove from the wok with a slot­ted spoon to a plate, leav­ing the oil behind.  Fry the red pep­pers in the oil for 30 sec­onds, then add the salt and con­tin­ue to cook them for anoth­er 45 sec­onds, then remove them with the slot­ted spoon to the peanut plate.

Wipe out the wok with paper tow­els and put it back on the heat for 15 sec­onds before pour­ing in fresh oil.  When it is hot, fry the gar­lic and gin­ger for 20 sec­onds, stir­ring con­stant­ly.  Add the chick­en and its mari­nade and cook until the chick­en is JUST cooked, stiff­ened and turn­ing white, just a cou­ple of min­utes, stir­ring con­stant­ly.  Add the pep­pers and cook for anoth­er minute, stir­ring constantly.

Add the soy sauce and the peanuts and stir-fry until you are sure the chick­en is cooked through, about 30 seconds.

Serve with steamed rice.

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This dish is just heav­en.  Sim­ple, very few ingre­di­ents, hon­est, fill­ing and beau­ti­ful.  And look at me, fol­low­ing a recipe: old dog, back to its old tricks.