The irresistible thrill of kung pao

By Genevieve Ko, The New York Times

A steaming plate of kung pao anything feels like the part of a fireworks show when small, bright bursts pop without deafening booms. Surprising but not jolting, it’s a dish filled with beats of excitement: You don’t know when they’re coming, but they’re always welcome.

With kung pao, that likable little thrill comes from the sauce’s flashes of chile heat in a glossy swirl of salty, sour and sweet that coats stir-fried chicken, shrimp, tofu, vegetables and, often, peppers and nuts. Every bite swings a little spicy or chewy, tangy or crisp. And there are endless variations, so the total number of possible kung pao experiences is something like infinity.

The dish’s defining elements are chiles and a sweetened soy-vinegar sauce, but most everything else is up for grabs, as it has been from the start. That makes it a meal you can cook night after night at home, where you can calibrate the seasonings to your liking and end up with something that tastes both new and familiar. (It also doesn’t hurt that it takes less than 20 minutes from start to finish.)

The origins of kung pao — transliterated today as “gong bao” — are murky, but the original source of the name is undisputed. It stems from a late-19th-century governor-general of Sichuan and gong bao (“palace guardian”), who is said to have loved this dish. In exploring the dish’s history, Fuchsia Dunlop, a British food writer who has expertly covered Chinese cuisine in English, notes that it may have been created in Sichuan, Guizhou or Shandong, with each province laying claim to it. But she notes, too, that there are countless versions from region to region, and even from cook to cook.

Knowing that there is no single way to make the dish, while simultaneously learning more about it, freed me from the fear of not preparing it “authentically.” I’m Chinese American and was raised on the food and in the culture, but Dunlop studied professional cooking in regions of China I’ve never even visited. Learning from the well-researched recipes in her cookbooks helped me return to how I long cooked Chinese dishes — by scent, sound, taste and practical needs — and gave me the confidence to create my own versions of beloved meals.