Homemade Takeout: General Tso's Chicken

As an avid fan of anything take-out, you can imagine that General Tso's Chicken could be found on my list of "Cant-stop-eating-this-it's-so-good." And of course it is. But What I bet you didn't know was that it's actually an American exclusive. (i.e. only found in the good old US of A.. and probably international places flooded with people from North America regularly.. but that is besides the point.) You see, if you were to go to China and ask a native if he could prepare General Tso's chicken he would not only admit that he had never heard of the dish but that he had never heard of a General Tso either. Interestingly enough, there has never even been a General Tso in Chinese history. Maybe it's just me, but why make up someone to name your chicken after when there are so many people who already existed to choose from..?

But anyway, enough with the history lesson. On to the good stuff!

This recipe was almost a complete rip off of this one, if anyone is looking for the original.

You're going to need the following:
(this picture is for 2 servings, hence the 3 eggs instead of 6)

(including 1/2lb of chicken per serving that somehow managed to get out of photo time)

Ingredients:

(makes 4 servings)

• 2lbs of skinless chicken tenders
• 20 dried red chili peppers (12 if you aren't in to the spicy thing)
• 6 eggs
• 1 cup of cornstarch
• frying oil of your choice (We used Vegetable Oil)
• 3 tablespoons of rice vinegar
• 4 tablespoons of rice wine
• 6 tablespoons of sugar
• 6 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 4 more teaspoons of cornstarch

 Instructions:

1. If you are using a deep fryer this would be a good time to turn it up to 375. If you're going to wok-fry, hang on for a few minutes.

2. In a large mixing bowl beat all 6 eggs together and add 1 cup of your cornstarch. Mix them together and make sure to get all the clumps out. It helps to pull them out of the egg with a fork and smash them against the side of the bowl to break them up. (That is, if you're mixing by hand like we did.)

3. Cut all of your chicken in to 1'' cubes and throw them in your egg and cornstarch mixture.

4. While those are soaking up all the soon-to-be crispy fried goodness, we should make our sauce. But first, if you're using a wok to fry you may want to start heating your oil up to 375. In a medium sized bowl add 3 tbsp rice vinegar, 4 tbsp rice wine, 6 tbsp soy sauce, 6 tbsp sugar and the remainder of your corn starch. Mix it up really good and be sure to smash up all your cornstarch clumps. Set that aside and let all that sugar melt.

5. (This is an optional step if you like your chicken extra crispy and batter-full.) Before throwing your chicken in to the fryer you might want to take them from the egg mixture and dip them in flour, back in the egg mixture and then the flour one more time just to add a little extra crunch. We didn't for ours, so I cant guarantee the outcome, but the trans-fat loving foodaholic within me makes me wish we did.

6. Your fryer should be hot and ready so fry up all your chicken until its crispy and golden brown. Make sure to cut one nugget from every fry batch in half just to make sure that they are all getting cooked through. Drain them on a cookie sheet lined with a paper towel to soak up and catch any extra grease.

7. Add 1 or 2 tbsp of your frying oil to your wok (we used a pot, we don't actually own a wok because come on... how many times would you actually cook with that?) and set it on med-high heat. Once the oil is hot enough, throw in your dried chilies and stir fry them for about a minute or so. Add in all your chicken and toss it around with the chilies to make sure you get them all coated in a little spiciness.

8. Lastly, you just pour in your sauce mixture and continue stirring until you get it to the consistency you like and then you're done! Just remove it from the heat, throw some rice and noodles together and there you go! 

Viola!

Now if only there was an easier way to bulk store fried chicken...