Gong Bao Ji Ding (宫保鸡丁) carries a man's job title in its name, and that is the first clue to how old it is.
The governor
Ding Baozhen was governor of Sichuan province in the 1870s. His honorary court title was Gong Bao — "palace guardian", an office granted to senior officials responsible for the heir apparent. He was, by every account, extremely fond of a particular dish of diced chicken with chillies and peanuts, and it took his title as its name. Whether his household cook invented it or simply perfected it is not settled, but the association stuck.
The dish itself belongs to Sichuan, and it shows: dried chillies for fragrance rather than raw heat, Sichuan peppercorn for the numbing má, black vinegar for sharpness, and peanuts for texture.
The renaming
During the Cultural Revolution the name became a problem. Honouring an imperial official was not acceptable, and the dish was renamed — variously "fast-fried chicken cubes" or "chicken cubes with seared chillies". The food did not change; only the label did. The original name returned in the 1980s and is now used everywhere in China.
What happened abroad
As the dish travelled, it changed more than its name. Western and South Asian versions dropped the Sichuan peppercorn almost entirely, which removes the defining sensation. Sugar went up, the sauce was thickened with cornflour until it coated rather than glazed, and bell peppers and sometimes pineapple appeared. What arrives on many tables today is a sweet, wet, red dish sharing little with the original beyond the peanuts.
The irony is that the numbing quality most often removed is the one thing that makes it Sichuan.
Where to taste the original
Our Chicken with Peanuts at Rs. 840 is cooked the traditional way — dry, with whole dried chillies and real Sichuan peppercorn. If you would like a fuller guide to ordering it, and to what else on the menu sits near it, see our separate post on what Kung Pao chicken really is and what to order instead.
