Recipes

Kung Pao is a Szechuan dish, very spicy. It's sometimes sold as "Chicken with peanuts." You can make it out of anything, shrimp, chicken, pork, whatever you like. I prefer shrimp.

Ingredients

3 tbl	olive oil
1 tbl	sesame oil
3	cloves garlic, minced
1	Ginger Root, 1" on a side
1/2 cup	wine or cooking sherry
1/2 cup	soy sauce
2 lbs	frozen stir-fry vegatables
2 tsp	Mongolian Fire Oil (hot chili oil)
2 cups	unsalted peanuts
2 lbs	shrimp

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Directions

Place the oils in your wok. Dice the ginger root and garlic into small pieces. Cook the garlic and ginger in the oils until the garlic is tan. Add the frozen vegatables to the wok, stirring them into the oil. Cook until defrosted, about 3-4 minutes. The wok should be *very* hot. Remove the tails from the shrimp. Add the shrimp, cooking sherry, soy sauce, and peanuts. Stir fry everything together, about 3 minutes. When everything is nearly cooked, put the corn starch in a coffee cup and add about 1 tbl water. Dissolve the corn starch, and add it to the mixture in the wok. Stir it in for about 30 seconds.

Serve over steamed rice.

Optional:

Substitute 1-2 pounds diced chicken for the shrimp. Cook the chicken in the oil about 5 minutes, then add the vegatables.

To mince the garlic: place the garlic cloves on a cutting board, and place the flat of a large chef's knife on a clove, then hit the other side with your fist. Peal the clove (it will be easy now). Place the pealed cloves near each other on the cutting board, hold the tip of the chef's knife on the board with one hand about 3" away from the cloves, and rock the blade up and down repeatedly. The edge of the knife is always touching the cutting board, you can't possibly get cut.