Kung Pao Chicken with Black Vinegar and bacon cauliflower fried rice

I love vinegar, I can't explain why, but I do. Maybe it's the fifth flavor umami that can't really be explained but isn't sweet, sour, bitter or salty.  Vinegar adds an element to food that I think makes it delicious. Several years ago I saw black vinegar called for in a beef and broccoli stir-fry recipe, which I had never heard of at the time and was curious, so I set out to find some. Six grocery stores later I couldn't find any and settled with the balsamic vinegar substitute suggested in the notes. The recipe turned out fantastic, but left me curious as to how it would be with black vinegar. While grocery shopping a while ago at a local grocery store, I saw some! There are three of the same grocery store in town and I didn't previously check them all. I have since learned that they are all the same store, but separate entities and have different inventory.

According to The Bald Gourmet "Chinese black vinegar is an aged vinegar which is typically made from rice, but can also be made from wheat, millet, sorghum, or a combination of any of the four. It has a deep black color, similar to that of balsamic vinegar." The vinegar I picked up smells similar to molasses, is somewhat sweet, and quite black. Naturally I was excited to try this vinegar and settled on two recipes I wanted to try, the beef and broccoli mentioned above, and a Kung Pao chicken recipe I'd been eying for a while. Unable to decide, I asked my wife, and we decided to make Kung Pao chicken. I have enjoyed Kung Pao chicken on many occasions but never tried to make it. I forgot to pick up the dried red chilies, which is ok as my wife doesn't have a high spice threshold though we are working on it.

Still working on food photography

I decided to do a cauliflower fried rice with the chicken partially because I love it and can't get enough, and partially because I didn't take inventory of my rice supply until I was in the process of cooking and discovered I didn't have enough. I used this recipe for the Kung Pao chicken http://rasamalaysia.com/kung-pao-chicken/2/ I don't have the dark soy sauce and a google search informed me that I was probably using dark soy sauce it just wasn't labeled as such, so I used the same soy sauce instead of two separate ones. I also added a few dashes of chili oil since I didn't have the chilies.

The cauliflower fried rice came from skinnytaste I completely spaced eggs, but it still turned out amazing. In fact, the whole meal was amazing, there were no leftovers! I'll have to make it again.