ANOTHER KUNG PAO CHICKEN (GLUTEN-FREE)

Steps:

• Dice chicken into 1-inch pieces. Place the chicken cubes, oil, cornstarch, wine, and soy sauce in a bag and give a quick toss before placing in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to marinate.
• While the chicken is marinating, dice bell pepper and cucumber into 1/2-inch squares, dice the red onion, and chop the green onions into 1/2-inch pieces.
• Mince the garlic and grate the ginger; set aside.
• In a wok or any suitably large frying pan, dry-roast the dried red peppers and peppercorns until they release their aroma; set aside.
• In a blender or food processor, combine hoisin sauce, soy sauce, rice wine, vinegar, oyster sauce, sugar, and chicken stock. Toss in the roasted peppercorns and 2 dried peppers and puree until no big chunks of the dried red pepper remain and the peppercorns are pulverized. If you don't have a blender or food processor or if you want to be more thorough, crush the peppers and peppercorns with a mortar and pestle, then just whisk together with the sauce in a small bowl or use the blender anyway.
• In the same pan as before, heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil over high heat (smoking hot really) and dump the contents of the chicken bag into the wok and stir fry until it has just cooked through.
• Remove chicken from the pan, leaving the hot oil behind, and set aside. You could also fry the peanuts until they achieve a darker brown hue (especially if you only have unroasted peanuts) but I didn't bother.
• In the same oil, sauté the cucumber, onion, green onion, and red bell pepper for about 4 minutes over high heat; just to remove their rawness while still retaining their crunchiness. If they start to release liquid, stop cooking and drain them right away.
• In the same oil, sauté the ginger and garlic for 30 seconds.
• Add contents of the blender (the sauce) and bring to a boil. Keep it at a boil until it has reduced to a thick syrup-like consistency.
• Return the cooked chicken to the wok and add the peanuts, the remaining 5 dried peppers, and the cooked vegetables and toss to heat the chicken through and coat with sauce.
• Transfer to your serving plate and drizzle with sesame oil. Serve over a bed of rice.