- Are you feeling all right, George?
- Yeah, fine.
- You look a little warm.
- It's the chicken.
- You're a terrible liar, George.
Look at you, you're a wreck.
You're sweating bullets.
- It's the Kung Pao.
George likes his chicken spicy.
(TV audience laughing)
- [Narrator] Hey, what's up, guys?
Welcome back to "Binging with Babish."
For this week, we're taking a look
at the Kung Pao chicken from "Seinfeld,"
a dish that, as you can see,
contains myriad spicy and flavorful ingredients,
so it should be pretty good.
We're starting off by combining
one tablespoon Shaoxing vinegar,
two tablespoons black vinegar,
one and a half tablespoons of soy sauce,
one teaspoon chicken bullion powder,
and one tablespoon chili bean paste in a small bowl.
In a separate and even smaller bowl,
we're combining one and a half tablespoons
of granulated sugar, two teaspoons of cornstarch,
and a half teaspoon of kosher salt,
whisking that into the liquids to make Kung Pao sauce.
Now, this is the point we're gonna start to screw up.
We're gonna break down two chicken breasts
into way too large one-inch chunks, which we're gonna
briefly marinate in one egg white
mixed with one tablespoon of water.
As we add the chicken and massage thoroughly
with gloved hands, we want to form
a sort of thick pasty goo on the outside of the chicken.
Once things are sufficiently gooey,
we're going to add two tablespoons of dark soy sauce,
two teaspoons each sesame oil and cornstarch,
as well as a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt,
come on, get out of there,
and a quarter teaspoon of ground white pepper.
Massage this together until it's even gooier still,
then let it sit around at room temperature
to marinate for about 20 minutes.
Next up we're de-seeding our Tien Tsin peppers.
Oop, what the hell-
The operation and safety of this battery
can not be guaranteed?
Yeah, continue use.
Think I care about battery safety? Nerd.
I do however care about ocular and penile safety,
so I'm wearing gloves, because whether you use
Tien Tsin, chili Japonese, or Chiles di arbol,
these guys are spicy.
Next up, we're incorrectly slicing
far too few scallions far too thinly,
and finally chopping four cloves of garlic
and a one-inch segment of fresh ginger.
Now the mistakes you're gonna have made so far
have been minor enough, but they're about to get
a whole lot worse, because we're headed over
to the stove top where we're heating half a cup of oil
over high heat in a large wok, swirling it around
until it smokes, which is gonna help season our pan
once we've poured off the oil.
Now we're going to start by frying
too few peanuts into little oil,
about a third of a cup of peanuts into a half cup of oil.
We're also going to take care to overcook them
because they brown quite quickly,
and continue browning once they're out of the oil.
So once they're just a little bit too dark,
we're gonna strain the now acrid oil from the peanuts.
Make sure you shake off every last drop
and add it back to the pen.
Then in this too little oil, we're gonna toast,
you guessed it, not enough Sichuan peppercorns,
about a quarter cup.
We're toasting those for one to three minutes
until they've slightly darkened and are fragrant,
and once again, straining out the oil,
which by now has not only reduced by more than half,
but is thoroughly bitter.
We're adding that back to the pan
and frying the chicken in it.
Now there should be more like
two cups of oil in this pan right now,
so you're gonna end up with a kind of
pasty, pallid pile of poultry that we're gonna dump
our chopped chilies on, letting those toast up
with the chicken as we frantically hope
that our dish's appearance will improve.
Next up, we're adding our too few scallions
and our ginger too early, sauteing for about two minutes
to try to darken up the chicken before adding the garlic,
sauteing for an additional 30 seconds,
and then mercifully, we're gonna add the Kung Pao sauce,
which, because we wimped out about the heat
and fried our chicken in too cold and too little oil,
is going to have this kind of eggy coagulant in it.
Now we're adding our lightly burned peanuts back to the pen,
mixing everybody together and serving up
our gooey, eggy, Kung Pao chicken stew.
Now at first you're gonna lie to yourself
and say, "Maybe it's not so bad,"
and then you're gonna remember that you host a cooking show
and you can't put out stupid, bad information.
So you're going to watch a video or two and start over,
this time using more peanuts, more scallions
and more Sichuan peppercorns.
After once again pre-seasoning our pan,
we're going to start with the correct amount of oil,
between one and a half to two cups,
heated to almost smoking, in which we're gonna
fry our peanuts for about one to two minutes.
Then for some reason, we're gonna try fishing them out
using a spider, which causes them to once again burn.
After picking out the really dark peanuts,
we're gonna soldier on, adding our marinated,
still too large chicken to the now correct amount of oil,
frying for about one minute until pale but not pasty,
this time fishing out with our spider and setting aside.
Then we're frying our insufficient third of a cup
of Sichuan peppercorns for one to two minutes,
ditching our spider idea and going back
to the old reliable dump and strain.
Then we're going to add a little bit too much oil
back to the pot, about three quarters of a cup,
our not enough scallions, our not nearly enough chilies,
and fry those guys together for about one minute
or until soft.
Then we're adding the garlic and ginger,
sauteing for 30 seconds, adding the chicken back to the pan,
and remember this is too much oil, the heat's way too low,
and we're gonna add our Kung Pao sauce too late.
So instead of Kung Pao stew,
we're gonna end up with Kung Pao soup.
We're gonna try to dress that up
by putting it over some white rice.
You're gonna want to tell yourself that people
won't notice the super burnt peanuts and thin sauce
poured over pale chicken because it's the night before
the episode comes out and let's face facts,
you're tired and a little desperate,
but then you're gonna remind yourself
that you procrastinated your way through high school
because you said that you worked well under pressure.
On some level, you're gonna know
that you're lying to yourself because you're trying
to compensate for your poor work habits,
but as usual, you're going to push down the bad thoughts
and soldier forward, cutting your chicken in smaller pieces,
chopping up more chilies and bigger chunks of scallion,
and better preparing your ingredients
so you can dump and go, and this time,
in the immortal final words of Larry David,
I have a system.
I've got to find mesh strainer set in a wide, deep saucepan
right next to the wok, so I can more easily
strain everything as it's being cooked,
more easily return the oil back to the pan
and more easily keep things super hot,
because that was something I was
kind of a wimp about the first time.
Almost every stage of cooking in this recipe
should be no longer than 30 seconds,
and the entire thing should come together
in about two minutes.
So I'm adding the chicken to our two cups of oil
and frying for about 30 seconds,
before straining into my waiting pot
and returning about a half a cup of the oil back to the pan.
Into this oil, I'm adding my scallions and chilies,
sauteing with confidence over maximum heat
for about 30 seconds.
there's gonna be smoke, it's gonna be scary,
but just soldier forward.
Don't be afraid to add a splash more oil,
and remember that every element that you add
to the pan cools it down.
So next, we're gonna add our garlic and ginger
and saute for no more than 30 seconds, add our chicken,
and then immediately add our Kung Pao sauce.
Last but not least, add the peanuts,
everything still blasting over super high heat,
and cook for about 30 seconds, darkening with more soy sauce
and/or bean paste if you want a darker color.
And there you have it, folks.
Third time's the charm.
The best Kung Pao chicken I've ever had.
The chicken's juicy, the vegetables are tender crisp.
the peanuts are crunchy and it is super flavorful and spicy.
So although George might be
my favorite character on "Seinfeld,"
I think the lesson here is don't be like George.
Mistakes don't have to be losses.
They can be learning opportunities.
Then again, I don't know what you learn
from accidentally killing your fiance with poison envelopes.
(upbeat music)