Gung Bao Turkey

Rachel and I have been cooking through a phenomenal Sichuan cookbook, The Food of Sichuan by Fuchsia Dunlop. It’s been a refreshing, enlightening, and inspirational exercise. The book is incredibly thorough and informative, well written and engaging, but beyond its literary merits, it's been fun to be excited about cooking. Both of us have been deeply engaged in learning how to cook a cuisine that is new to us. Exploring new ingredients, flavors, techniques, has been like learning how to hunt a new species, or exploring completely new ground. We’ve been working wild game meat into our new favorite recipes. And luckily for us, wild turkey is a shoo in for a lot of the chicken dishes. 

This recipe for gung bao turkey is the original ancestor of the American-Chinese takeout classic, Kung Pao Chicken. But the resemblance between the two is about as close as a Butterball is to a wild turkey- one can barely stand up on its own, and the other might stab you.

Gung Bao has what’s known in Sichuan cooking as a “lychee” flavor—not because it tastes like the fruit, but because it strikes a similarly delicate balance of sweet, tangy, and savory. If you’ve had lychee before, lucky you—you already know the vibe. For everyone else, think of a subtle sweetness, a touch of tang, and a deep, lingering savoriness, along with the famous heat that Sichuan food is known for. The dish is a masterclass in balancing flavor and texture.

The ingredient list might look a bit intimidating, but you should be able to find all the ingredients in a well stocked Asian grocery store, or on Amazon. They will be much more affordable if you can find them in person. And the ingredients are key to this dish. Substituting fundamental ingredients like the sichuan peppercorn, shaoxing wine and chinkiang vinegar are how you turn a twenty pound thunder chicken into the overweight monstrosity that is the domestic turkey. 

The technique for this dish is very simple: gather your ingredients, marinate, make the sauce, cut your veggies, stir fry. First, you cut and marinate the turkey- I'm using tenders in this batch, but the breast will be perfectly fine. Mix the sauce ingredients and set aside. Ready your chilis, ginger, garlic and scallions. Make some rice and measure out the fried peanuts.

Tip: when youre cleaning the turkey tenders, use a paper towel to grip the tendon in the tenders and pull-scrape it out with the backside of a knife.

 Note on the use of a wok: Ideally, you would use a wok and a big burner to make this dish, but unfortunately, most people, us included, don't have the proper burner and hood to accommodate real wok work. We use a wide, deep sided saute pan most of the time, turn the exhaust hood on high, and silently know that whoever is closest to the smoke detector is responsible for shutting it up.

Gong Bao Turkey

INGREDIENTS:

~2 turkey tenders, tendon removed, cut into ~½” cubes

1 bunch of scallions, cut into 1” chunks, mostly white parts

12 dried chilis (sichuan preferably, but arbols are a good substitute)

1 tsp sichuan peppercorn, whole

3 cloves garlic, minced

~1 ½ tbsp ginger, minced

½ cup fried peanuts (cook raw peanuts in oil at ~220F for 10-15 minutes until golden brown and crunchy) substitute high quality roasted peanuts if unavailable

Marinade

½ tsp salt

2 tsp light soy sauce (the “regular” soy sauce you see in stores)

1 tsp shaoxing cooking wine

1 ½ tbsp potato starch

Sauce

2 tbsp powdered sugar

1 tsp potato starch

1 tsp dark soy sauce

1 tsp light soy sauce

2 tbsp chinkiang vinegar

2 tbsp water

1 tsp sesame oil

method:

Cut the turkey tenders into even sized cubes about ½”. Place in a small mixing bowl and add in marinade ingredients, stir and mix well. Set aside.

Combine all ingredients for the sauce, stir to mix. Set aside.

Heat a wok or large saute pan over high heat, add about a ¼ cup of cooking oil, then add the chili peppers and the sichuan peppercorns. Stir the peppers until they are lightly toasted and fragrant, less than a minute. Add in the turkey, allow to brown on one side then stir to evenly brown. Cook for 2-3 minutes until almost cooked through. 

Add in ginger, garlic, and scallions. Stir fry for another minute or two. Add in sauce and allow to sizzle for a few seconds, then stir to evenly coat the turkey and scallions. Add in peanuts and stir. Serve immediately over rice.

Advertising Disclosure:

As an Amazon Associate I may earn from qualifying purchases. With that being said, none of these companies asked or paid me to include their products in this dish. These are the products we keep in our pantry and used in the creation of this recipe.

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