Tuesday, October 4, 2011

General Tso's Chicken

There was a time when one of my favorite things to "make" for dinner was a phone call to our local Chinese restaurant for take-out. These days, I'd rather make my favorite take-out choices from scratch. I even took it one step further this time by making a homemade chile garlic sauce. I read labels like a hawk to check for ingredients I'd rather avoid, and one tip-off about a product is whether or not it's on the shelves at Whole Foods. A chile garlic sauce I've used in the past is no longer sold at Whole Foods, and that's because of a preservative it contains. So, I decided to make my own. You can do whatever you want with homemade take-out. You can also decide if you want to use dark meat or white meat chicken, and Kurt prefers white meat, so that's what I used. And, another important issue is that when you make it yourself you can make it as spicy as you'd like, and that tends to be extra spicy for us. With all these considerations, our General Tso's chicken was tailor-made to suit our tastes. The original recipe came from the May issue of Food and Wine, and the crispy chicken and sweet-spicy sauce were quick and easy to prepare.

To make the chile garlic sauce, you can use fresh red chiles or dried. I used dried because I had several stored away with my spices. I chopped them in a food processor with garlic, salt, sugar, and rice vinegar. Just add a little vinegar as you begin to puree, and then add more as needed for the paste consistency you want. The paste can be stored in the refrigerator for a few months, or you can just make what you need and not have one more thing cluttering the refrigerator which is what I should have done given the state of my refrigerator. To start the General Tso's chicken, sesame oil, an egg white, soy sauce, and cornstarch were combined. Chunks of boneless chicken were added to the mixture, turned to coat, and were left for 20 minutes. In a separate bowl, chicken broth, chile garlic sauce, sugar, soy sauce, and cornstarch were whisked together for the sauce. In a sauce pan, minced ginger and garlic were cooked in oil for a minute, and the sauce mixture was added. This was cooked while stirring until slightly thickened and then kept warm while the chicken was fried. The coated pieces of chicken were pan fried for a couple of minutes per side and then drained on a paper towel-lined sheet pan. Last, the chicken was added to the sauce and stirred to cover before being served with rice and broccoli.

This meal really was a breeze to make, and next time, I'll already have my homemade chile garlic sauce ready to use assuming I can find it in my packed refrigerator. We no longer live near that Chinese restaurant, so our old, favorite take-out isn't an option anymore, but with recipes like this, that's ok.



29 comments:

  1. A wonderful Chinese stir-fry! I really have to try this dish someday...

    Cheers,

    Rosa

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  2. Looks delicious! Do you think the recipe would work with tofu?

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  3. Chana: Yes, I think tofu would be great. I'd use extra firm tofu, and press it to drain well before cutting into chunks. Fry carefully, tofu spatters in hot oil!

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  4. Lisa, your chicken looks delicious, like the ones that they serve in my local restaurant :-)
    Hope you are having a great week and thanks for sharing this recipe!

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  5. Oh...love it! And you made your own chile garlic sauce :) Delish!

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  6. Thanks for this post. My salivary juices are flowing and I'll be making this soon.

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  7. I am far from the restaurant scene where I live now and I am missing some good Chinese food. thanks so much for the link and your picture is making me hungry!

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  8. Ohh now I'm so craving chinese... this looks so good.

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  9. Hawk you may be but I will hug you tightly. Yes, I am super-particular about ingredients labels esp in sauces. So...good that you made your own ;)

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  10. This looks ouch better than a restaurant!

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  11. General Tsao is one of my very favourite treat foods and your version looks DIVINE. Love the ginger and green onions... It's only breakfast time here but I'm ready to jump in! Fantastic Lisa.

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  12. Oh MAN! This is SO helpful. I made the same Food and Wine recipe a couple of weeks ago and made some adjustments to the chili portion as well. It wasn't quite as flavorful as I wanted it to be, so this is super informative. Yay!

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  13. Lisa, Great post! You give us all such a good reminder that so often those sauces we buy at the store are actually really easy to make. And like you said, you can completely customize the flavors to your liking:)
    -Erin

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  14. Ooh, this homemade version looks so much better than the gloppy stuff my sister and I used to "enjoy" years ago.

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  15. This is an Americanized Chinese dish which I am not familiar with, but would like to try it one day. The home-made chile garlic sauce sounds and looks so delicious

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  16. What a way to make chicken!! Really mouth watering. Looks really great!! love the photo. Thanks for sharing.

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  17. We don't get this chicken dish in Australia so when we visited the US a few years ago we made sure to order it just to see what it was like-and it was delicious!

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  18. I remember reading about this dish last year...had never heard about it before. It really looks wonderful and love the idea of toning down the spice when you make it yourself. I think you like things spicier than we do!

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  19. Hi Lisa,

    I love the fact that you said this is easy to make. That is such a plus - especially for a weeknight meal! :-)

    How fascinating that you are focusing on learning more about Chinese cooking. I think so many folks think they need to go our for Chinese instead of making it at home. But when you start to delve into it, there are things that can be made at home - just like this chicken dish. I can't wait to make it now!!

    My M-I-L is Chinese and has taught me a few things - such as dumplings and egg rolls - both of which were so much easier than I would have ever thought!

    You have a beautiful blog and I love your photographs. The food always appears as though it is real and in front of me ready to eat!

    Love,

    Mary

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  20. This is a favourite of mine! It looks so tasty and packed with flavours...I would want a second helping of steamed rice!

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  21. Looks terrific! My husband would be so thrilled if I learned to make General Tso's chicken- it's his standard order at our Chinese takeout place. I'd hate to know what preservatives and other surprises are in their dish. Good call on making your own chile garlic sauce.

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  22. This is one of my favorites and looks better than anything I can order. I'm inspired to make it at home now! It's been too long since I cooked Chinese food.

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  23. I love reading that Whole Foods is so careful about which jarred products they will put on their shelves. We go there so often but often I wonder if they are diligent or marketing creatively. I'd love to get to the Whole Foods headquarters in Austin soon!

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  24. This dish looks fabulous... much better than any take out joint! It looks worth the effort... and you know what is going onto your dinner>

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  25. Lisa it's the first time I've heard of this recipe because we don't have so many Chinese restaurants where I live, but I've bookmarked it to try it as it sounds delicious and so easy to make.

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  26. I'm going to try your seared salmon next week!

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  27. This looks delicious. I'm with you on limiting the amount of takeout we order in. Basically we only do it when we're desperate for time (once every month or two, max). I just think we're eating so much better when we make it ourselves!

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  28. i've had authentic general tso's chicken exactly once, and it looked almost precisely like what you've plated here. nice job, lisa!

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  29. My mouth is watering, this looks fabulous! I made orange chicken once at home and loved it so I should try this too :)

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