Thread by @sfrantzman

Food diary at #ChezFrantzman

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.

The thicker sauce can be added a bit at the end.

We learned from this seriouseats.com/the-best-gener…

Also learned from this recipetineats.com/general-tsos-c…