General Tso Chicken Recipe

General Tso Chicken Recipe

One of best chinese cuisine that popular in Asia and US is general tso chicken. You’ll be spoiled by the mix taste from savory, spicy, yet sweet in a bite. The dish is special since it only uses the boneless chicken and marinated with the sauce. It’s easy to make the dish and only needs less than 30 minutes to be served. Here are the cooking tips and recipe that you might try.General Tso Chicken Recipe

Choosing the Best Ingredients Tips

  1. Chicken part

The best meat to cook this cuisine is the thigh part. Thigh part is boneless and juicy than any other part of the chicken. The breast part is okay, but the taste will be different at the end. The boneless will be easier to when you bite it. Since the dish is marinated with the wine, the bone is gonna be useless.

  1. Shaoxing wine

This wine is like the key of all main chinese dishes. The taste is unique and it gives chinese food taste to the general tso chicken. It’s not the beverage you’ll find at the bar cause it’s created to make your food perfect. The wine is used to soak the chicken meat. The meat will absorb the wine so the taste will be greater. Nothing is better to marinate the chicken than the shaoxing wine.

  1. Cornstarch

This ingredient has the main role as the coating of the chicken meat. It is a thickener, yet make the meat crispy. Choose the one which least of granules. Instead sticking to the meat, granules will dirt the oil when the meat is in deep-frying. Sieve the cornstarch whenever you coat another slice of meat so the texture gets finer.

  1. Vegetable oil

Since the cooking involves the deep-frying, ypu need to prepare the clean vegetable oil. It means, the oil is new and never used before. Why is this a must? Besides it’s healthy way to cook, the clean oil doesn’t have any other aromas. Otherwise, the recycled one contains LDL which danger your health and turns into smoky easily. The best vegetable oil for this dish is palm oil.

  1. Hoisin sauce

Hoisin sauce will be the main part of the dish. It’s added as the sauce and marinated when the chicken is cooked. It’s thick and dark, yet the taste is salty and sweet. This sauce is very popular in China whether as dip sauce ot stir fries. Though the amount won’t be that much, hoisin will create the best taste in Chinese cuisine, so is the general tso chicken.

Cooking Tips

  1. Creating the sauce

The sauce consists of many ingredients. Hoisin sauce, shaoxing wine and the cornstarch become the main part of it. The hoisin sauce is salty enough, that’s why you don’t need to put more salt. The shaoxing wine will give the taste of chinese cuisine, while the cornstarch make it like batter. The sauce will make the meat more tender and colorize it darker. Avoid to substitute the cornstarch.

  1. Soaking the meat

Before you cook the meat onto the sauce, you should soak it with the shaoxing wine and salt. It will give the flavor to the whole part of the chicken. Take the salt in consideration or else the meat will be too salty. As waiting the soaked meat, you can create the sauce.

  1. Coating tips

The soft chicken is better to be coated by the cornstarch. It creates the cripsy taste as you bite it. Afther the meat is siaked, you can coat it with dry cornstarch. The cornstarch will stick easily since the meat surface has been moist by the wine. But, you need to deep-frying it immediately. The cornstarch will be moist and the result won’t be cripsy.

  1. Deep-frying

This part of cooking is very important. If the oil quality is bad, the taste isn’t delicious. The meat surface or the crisp will be the brown, but the meat is still raw. Use the clean oil to do this part and it needs much amount. Pay attention to the smoke that may come if the heat is too high.

The Recipe of General Tso’s Chicken

General Tso Chicken RecipeCourse                                  : Main dishes

Cuisine                                 : Chinese dish

Preparation time              : 15 minutes

Cook time                           : 5 minutes

Total time                            : 20 minutes

Servings                               : 2 people

Calories                                : 398 per serving

Ingredients

  • The chicken
  • 250 gram of chicken meat (breast or thigh which is boneless)
  • ½ tsp of salt
  • ½ tbsp of wine (shaoxing is better)
  • 1/3 cup or 70 gram of corn starch
  • ¼ kg of vegetable oil for deep frying
  • 2 tbsp of vegetable oil
  • A clove of garlic
  • 3 slices of ginger
  • 5 red chilies (dried is prefered)
  • 2 white stalks scallion

 

  • The sauce
  • 2 tbsp of rice vinegar
  • 2 tbsp of soy sauce
  • 1 tsp of hoisin sauce
  • 50 ml of water
  • 2 tbsp of sugar
  • ½ tbsp of shaoxing wine
  • 1 tsp cornstarch

Instructions

  1. Cut the chicken meat in a bite-size or cubes. After that, marinate it with wine and salt. Let it for about 10-15 minutes.
  2. As waiting for the soaked chicken, you can make the sauce. Mix all the sauce ingredients in a bowl. The, set aside.
  3. After 15 minutes, the chicken must be coated with the cornstarch. Do the deep-frying as soon as it’s coated. Set the medium heat and fry the chicken until it changes into light brown color. If it’s already brown, take it up and drain the oil on the meat.
  4. Prepare a wok and heait it in medium heat. Put 2 tablespoons of oil, then add the dried chilies, garlic, and ginger. Stir them well until it smells good.
  5. Put the sauce onto the wok and let it boil.
  6. After that, put all the chicken and stir it well. The chicken must be marinated by the sauce. Add the scallion that has cut into pieces.
  7. After five minutes, it can be served as your main dish.

The general tso chicken is usually served as dinner main course. Its popularity increases in many countries outside Asia. The ingredients are easy to get and the steps is simple. As a wholesome chinese meal and kind of mouth-watering dish, why don’t you try this recipe?

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