Chicken Breast Gong Bao Style

1. For the marinade, I first stir the sherry and soy sauce, then I dissolve the cornstarch in it and stir the quince jelly until smooth. I also stir in the coarsely chopped garlic and ginger. Then I cut the chicken breast into 0.5 cm thick slices, put them in the marinade and let them marinate in it for at least 30 minutes.
2. I first heat the wok without oil, roast the cashew nuts in it and set them aside. In the meantime, I coarsely crush the Szechuan pepper in a mortar, cut the chilli pepper into small slices (depending on the degree of heat required, remove the seeds and cut into strips), the carrots into pens, the peppers into strips, the spring onions into 0.5 cm wide slices and the Mushrooms in quarters.
3. Then I heat some oil in the wok and first roast the Szechuan pepper and the chilli pepper a little to flavor the oil. Then I put the chicken breast in the oil and fry it all over.
4. Then gradually stir in the vegetables, first the carrots and peppers, then the spring onions and finally the mushrooms and cashew nuts.
5. I pour on the marinade and the poultry stock, bring everything to a vigorous boil and reduce a little until the sauce thickens slightly. I season the dish with salt and, if the heat is not enough, with a little ground chiles (or cayenne pepper) and serve it with rice.

A couple of notes about this dish:

1. I have loved Szechuan style since I was able to warm myself up for Chinese cuisine, especially the so-called “Sizzeling Plates”, wok dishes that are served sizzling hot on cast iron pans, which are characterized by their pleasant flavor and a slight spiciness. For a long time I believed that the secret of these dishes lay in the legendary hoisin sauce. If you like, try to fathom this secret in its depths, I personally took a “slightly fruity” sharpness from the taste components for me. As for the classic “Gong Bao” or “Kung Pao” dishes, I am now sure that the Szechuan pepper gives them a very typical taste. A pleasant basic spiciness is essential, here you can vary as much as you want by choosing the chilli peppers and using them with or without seeds. I generate the fruity-sweet note in my dish with the quince jelly – based on a recipe by Lea Linster, which, in combination with orange zest, has a particularly nice fruity-fresh note. And above all: the dish needs a “bite”, so some freshly roasted (unsalted) cashew nuts or peanuts …