Wanted to make "General Tso's" chicken and looked around for some ideas at 'Serious Eats' and 'Recipe Tin Eats'.
We began by buying four large chicken breasts and carving them up into approx 1 inch cubes.
2/We put this with 2 tbsp of soy sauce, 1 tbsp of hoisin sauce, chili flakes, 1 tbsp of sesame oil, 2 tbsp of cornstarch, 1 egg white beaten, 2 tbsp sherry, 2 tbsp Tito's vodka, a dash of baking soda, dash of salt, chopped garlic and chopped ginger, 2 tbsp rice vinegar.Set aside
We then made the dry dip/rub in a deep bowl; with 1.5 cup of cornstarch and 1/2 cup of flour, dash of baking powder and kosher salt.
We then take the chicken from the marinade by hand and put them in the dry rub until coated and placed on a plate;
4/and then fried it in batches in hot vegetable oil for around 4 minutes per batch. It took four batches. Set aside on paper towel to remove oil.
We then made several versions of sauce.
Each began by frying some chopped green onion, chopped garlic, ginger in dash of vegetable oil. For simple one we quickly added 1 cup of chicken stock into pan and 3 tbsp brown sugar and 1 tbsp cornflour and dash of hoisin, sesame oil and 1 tbsp soy sauce and 1 tbsp rice vinegar.
6/We began to cook it down until it thickens, about a minute or two, and then add the chicken and coat the chicken and pour into a large dish to serve with white rice.
We made a tamari-soy-sesame-ginger sauce for the side.
-put green onion and thinly sliced red chili on chicken
7/The more complex sauce we made in a bowl with 3 tbsp brown sugar, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp sherry, 1 tbsp chicken stock, 2 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp cornstarch, chopped garlic and ginger, dash of hoisin sauce, chopped green onion, chili flakes and 1 tbsp, sesame oil.
8/Fry green onion, garlic and ginger in a dash of vegetable oil and then add all this into a pan and cook down and put back in a bowl. You'll add it again with the chicken in the pan to coat it.
What we found is that making the sauce in the pan starting with the ginger, garlic and green onion and dash of oil, and then adding the cup of chicken stock, the soy, sesame, hoison, brown sugar and cornflour lets it slowly gel and cook down and then throw in the chicken.
I'm fascinated and saddened every time I see a news story about Hamas in Gaza, such as the recent statements about EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas speaking with her Israelis counterpart and discussing Hamas in Gaza. It always shocks me that after 655 days of war that Hamas continues to control part of Gaza and negotiate to return to control most of it. The existence of Hamas in Gaza shouldn't even be a discussion today. It shouldn't be there. But it is. It is unclear if Hamas will be removed from Gaza. If it is to be removed there doesn't appear to be a clear roadmap for doing so. This lack of a process is part of the wider series of missteps and challenges that plagued the war for 21 months.
It's fascinating that despite murdering more than 1,000 people on October 7 and kidnapping 250; that decisions were made in the early months of the war that would result in keeping Hamas in power. Instead of being laser focused on removing Hamas, so Israelis wouldn't be kidnapped again, so they wouldn't be massacred again; the war was treated as another round in Gaza, another 2006, 2009, 2014. In fact, the plans for the offensive in Gaza were almost identical to past raids. The concept: Go into part of Gaza city or Khan Younis, uproot some tunnels; and then leave. Go into the Philadelphi corridor, clear it out and then negotiate over leaving it.
One of the early examples of a decision that was obviously made to result in Hamas staying in power, was the decision to move civilians in Gaza to be under Hamas rule. The IDF or other officials made decisions early on that under no circumstances would Israel deal with the civilians, and under no circumstances would an alternate authority be created to administer their lives in a non-Hamas zone. As such the result was to move 2 million people to remain under Hamas rule.
There is a lot of talk today about sheikhs in Hebron who want to for an "emirate" of Hebron. This is being greeted by some as a positive initiative. Let's take a look at the claims and also what the results could be.
First, the context. Israel is engaged in a 637 day war in Gaza against Hamas. Hamas still controls around 40 percent of Gaza. In Gaza, Israel has backed an initiative to have armed militias involved in some activities in the rest of Gaza. There is one named commander, Abu Shabab (not his real name obviously) and there are rumored to be others.
Some see this as a wise decision to have multiple armed gangs and militias run a post-war Gaza. Israel's current government opposes having the PA run Gaza, so the theory is that armed militias fighting eachother and Hamas is a good future.
In the West Bank the PA has been relatively successful at ruling Palestinian cities and towns for thirty years. However, Israel's current government includes parties that oppose the PA. The PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is aging and there is talk of what comes next.
Israel's Ynet says IDF possibly "preparing for a new phase in its campaign against Hamas on Sunday, as heavy airstrikes pounded northern Gaza and military officials weighed a deeper ground maneuver, potentially including a renewed incursion into Gaza City."
Is this the third "new phase" since March 2025? There was one that began on March 1 after the ceasefire fell apart; it truly began on March 18...then another one began after May 5 with Gideon's Chariots. Now, it's June 29...and yet another.
What the report says is a "deeper" maneuver...the IDF has spent the last months basically re-taking buffer areas around Gaza, leaving Hamas in charge of the central camps and Gaza city. 632 days of war and the IDF basically never went into parts of Gaza city or the central camps.
I remember having a conversation with someone a year ago and I'd said that the IDF still needs to defeat Hamas and remove it. They said "but hasn't Israel taken all of Gaza and defeated Hamas"...I had to remind them that, no...the Israeli offensive always leaves Hamas in charge of around half of Gaza. And it's the same a year later.
Iran's targeting of Qatar appears counter intuitive because Doha has generally been the most friendly country toward Tehran in the Gulf. Unlike the tensions that have existed between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in the past with Iran; and to a lesser extent the UAE; Doha is close to Iran. Al-Udeid US base in Qatar is also just one of MANY US bases in the Gulf; there is also the naval facility in Bahrain, and al-Dhafra in the UAE and sites in Kuwait.
However, on the other hand Iran may assume it has enough political capital built up with Doha, and also cooperation with them in the energy sector; that Iran can do this and climb down after. If Iran focused on Saudi Arabia it could harm the fragile Beijing brokered new relations with Riyadh; it if targeted the UAE this could cause a crisis; also Bahrain could lead to a crisis.
Doha is therefore the least obvious choice. Iran could have targeted Al-Asad base in Iraq, or US bases in Syria, or in the KRG or US naval ships, or many other locations. However, Tehran may have assumed Doha is a kind of safe bet. It could tell Doha before hand what it would do, then there will be a formal complaint but maybe this leads to a deal brokered by Doha and Ankara?
What happened to the Iranian hardliners? Remember back in the era before the JCPOA and also after we were always told that it was important to "empower" the "moderates" in Iran's regime and that if we didn't do everything the regime wanted then the "hardliners" would be empowered? What happened to this fiction?
The narrative of hardliners and moderates was obviously a transparent nonsense designed to cater to the West's need to feel that it can "do X and then Iran will be happy and do Y"...it was sold to the West in a nice package and hundreds of opeds in Western media and commentators employed this paradigm to explain Iran
Notice how Iran's regime never felt it needed to "empower moderates in the US"...or that its behavior, such as attacking Saudi Arabia or Israel or other countries would "empower hardliners." Iran never had to sell itself this fiction because this was a talking point cooked up in the West, probably at a focus-group decades ago, as a way to sell the West, and especially the US, a mythical Iran policy.