General Tso's Chicken

[jeff]

This recipe is courtesy of Grace Garden, Odenton Maryland.

General Tso's Chicken is a very American dish.

This recipe is for a large size entree from a Chinese restaurant.



6 chicken legs
3/4 TBS Soy Sauce
1/4 TBS Dark Soy Sauce
1/2 cup + 1 TBS Corn Starch
3 gloves garlic minced about 1 tsp worth
about 1 tsp worth of ginger
3 red peppers
1 tsp red pepper/chili paste http://www.khmerkromrecipes.com/phot...eppersauce.jpg
1 green onion cut up
1 TSP oil + 3-4 cups of oil for frying.
1 bunch of broccoli (optional)
1 cup of sweet and sour sauce (recipe follows)

Sweet and Sour

3 Part water
2 Part sugar
1 Part vinegar (rice vinegar if you have it)
1 part soy

Place all the sweet and sour sauce items in your pan and heat till the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and set aside.


Start off by cutting up the green onion, mincing the garlic and ginger, and cut up the broccoli (if using) set everything aside.

Make up a batch of sweet and sour sauce, then mix together 1 tsp of cornstarch and 1 tsp of water to make a cornstarch slurry. Set aside.

Get your chicken legs out, remove the skins and bone them. cut the pieces up into even size pieces. Once all 6 legs are done, set the meat into a bowl, add one egg yolk mix together (with your hand), then add about 1/4 cup of cornstarch, and add a dash of water, at first it might seem like there's way to much cornstarch but it will work its way out. add about 1 TBS of oil and continue mixing. Add more corn starch if needed.
After a few times making a dish like this (this is used often in American Chinese cooking) you're get an idea for just how much corn starch you'll need to use. Once it's mixed together. Place the bowl in the sink, and pick up the chicken, throw it into the bowl as hard as you can, this will help tenderize the chicken. (see video) Once this is done 15-20 times, set the chicken aside. (Doing it in the sink is due to raw chicken. it will help minimize any risk of random chicken parts flying around the kitchen)

*** If using broccoli ***
If cooking with an American style, boil some water and toss your broccoli into it, cook till they're tender yet still crisp.

If cooking with a Chinese style...
Heat up a large pot of oil to about 375 and cook the broccoli in the oil for about 45-60 seconds. It cooks much faster then you think!

Remove from oil and set aside.
*** ***


Heat a large pot of oil up to 400-425o you want the oil very hot!
very carefully place about half of the chicken into the pot one piece at a time, as soon as all the pieces are in the pot, make sure none are sticking to each other then quickly remove from the oil, set aside on plate A.

Take the 2nd half of the chicken and again place in the oil 1 piece at a time...

Once all the pieces are in the oil, remove them from the oil and place on Plate B

Put the chicken from Plate A back in the oil for about 20 seconds. then remove from oil and put Plate B back in the oil for about 20 seconds.
do this about 3-4 times each, what you're trying to do is make the outside very very very crispy while keeping the inside very moist and not over done! the trick is to keep pulling the chicken out of the oil to keep the insides from getting cooked to much. Once you can feel that the chicken has a nice hard crispy outside. set aside.

Get ready one bowl with 3/4 TBS soy and 1/4 TBS dark soy, and another bowl with the cornstarch slurry, also make sure theres a spoon in the cornstarch slurry.

heat up a wok over high heat, place about 1 tsp oil in the wok, add the minced ginger and minced garlic to the wok, crack open/break in half the 3 red peppers, the tsp of chili paste and add everything to the wok, as soon as the garlic, ginger, and peppers put of a very nice fragrant smell, add the sweet and sour sauce. using your spoon mix everything in a circular motion, you're looking for the sauce to start to bubble. Add the soy sauces and about half of the cornstarch slurry, continue to stir in a circular motion. After awhile the bubbles should reduce and the sauce will become very runny and syrup like, it should very very smooth! If need be add the other half of the cornstarch. At this point add in your chicken, keep in mind you're working with sugar and it will thicken a bit when it cools. Lastly toss in the chopped green onions. Mix everything together and plate

If your sauce turns into a very thick syrup this means you cooked out the water. In other words, you over cooked your dish, if this happens you can save it by adding more sweet and sour sauce and thicken if needed. Your chicken might have a nice sugary coating but it should still taste good =)

Just so you know, the Dark soy sauce is for color, if you want a darker looking dish, add more. If you want a lighter dish, add less, also if you want a more red looking dish add red food coloring to the sweet and sour sauce, or if you like it plain just leave it plain.

Also note the cleaner your oil the lighter colored your chicken will turn out. Dirty oil will make foods darker.
If you want a nice deep dark color like you see at the local stores, just use used oil and add more dark soy sauce.

Updated 12/16/06 by Jeff

[jeff]

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[jeff]

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[jeff]

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[jeff]

Here's a video of the tossing the chicken into the bowl part.