↳replying to u/gsd250: Ha yes peanuts are important!! And spring onions. You don’t want other vegetables like celery or carrots, or it won’t be authentic.
There are two flavor notes one should expect in an authentic Kung Pao chicken dish: lychee-like flavor (light sweet and sour, which is probably the most difficult to get right), and burned chili flavor (it has to be burned — which, ironically, Panda Express got it pretty nice, yet they don’t have the lychee flavor nor the right ingredients)
“The sauce definitely is a sort of sweet vs sour type but I'm not sure I get lychee. That being said the veg is only green and red pepper ( also with a super hefty dose of the thin red chili's that give it the heat, the ones that are sorta hard to chew...) And those are cooked pretty al dente..nice crunch to them.”