General Tso chicken is a very popular Chinese American dish and was invented by a Taiwan based chef who moved to New York in the 70’s. He named this dish as an homage to his Hunan heritage and their beloved general Zuo Zongtang. However, the name of this dish has no connection to general Zuo nor it’s known in China Hunan province. If you like to know more about the history of General Tso chicken dish, you can read this on Wikipedia.
The chicken is crunchy deep-fried yet still juicy and tender and has a sweet spicy flavour. My method of deep-fried chicken is slightly different than the original recipe and is mainly different in the batter. I also like to cook my choice of vegetables together with the sauce and chicken to serve it as a main (bowl) dish accompanied with steamed rice.
Cooking time: approx. 45 minutes for 2 persons
Ingredients & Tools
- 300gr chicken thigh filet
- 1tbsp cooking rice wine
- Maizena or potato starch
- Sunflower oil to deep-fry
- 15cm Dutch type cucumber
- 8x cherry tomatoes
- Optional to add: 150gr bimi, broccoli or bell pepper – yellow bell pepper would bring a nice colour pallet)
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- Salt
- Garnish: roasted sesame seeds
- Steamed rice to accompany the chicken dish
For the sauce:
- 2tbsp light soya and 1tbsp dark soya – or just 3tbsp light soya
- 1tbsp white vinegar
- 1tbsp ketchup (Heinz)
- 1tbsp white sugar
- 0,5 tsp white pepper
- 2x small garlic clove fine grated or 1x big clove
- 1x chili
- 1tbsp fine grated ginger (~3cm)
- 1x deep fry pan
- 1x big fry pan
- Sieve and/or wooden chopstick to get the chicken out of the deep-fry pan
- Kitchen paper
- Very fine grater
- 1x medium bowl to marinate chicken
- 1x big bowl to powder chicken or use a 3-5L plastic bag
- 1x big bowl
- 1x small bowl for the sauce
- 1x small cup for maizena mix
What to do?
- ————- Marinate chicken ————-
- Remove fat and cut the chicken in bite size pieces and put in medium size bowl.
- Marinate the chicken with 1tbsp cooking rice wine.
- ————- Prepare sauce ————-
- Use a small bowl to prepare the sauce.
- Put 2 Tbsp light soya and 1 Tbsp dark soya in bowl. Or just 3 Tbsp light soya if you don’t have dark soya. Dark soya has a stronger flavour of saltness.
- Put 1 Tbsp white vinegar in bowl.
- Put 1 Tbsp ketchup in bowl. Personally, I prefer using Heinz.
- Put 1 Tbsp white sugar in bowl
- Put ½ tsp white pepper in bowl and mix all the ingredients.
- ————- Remaining sauce preparation ————-
- Put below ingredients separately on the side (not in the sauce bowl) as these will used to get aromas when we heat the oil in the pan.
- Grate 2x small garlic cloves.
- Grate 1xtbsp ginger.
- Chop 1x chilli fine.
- Use a small cup to prepare maizena mix: put 1tsp maizena and 2tbsp water and mix it well.
- ————- Cut vegetables ————-
- If you do not like cucumber skin, you can peel this off. Then slice the cucumber lengthwise in 4 and remove the seeds.
- Then cut cucumber in bite pieces.
- Cut cherry tomatoes in half.
- Cut optional veggie of choice in pieces. Wash beforehand if needed.
- ————- Deep-fry chicken ————-
- Powder the chicken in maizena or potato starch. There are 2 easy ways to do this. Put all the chicken in a big bowl and mix the powder bit by bit in the chicken until the meat is lightly covered. Don’t use too much maizena. Or put all chicken in a 3/5L sandwich plastic bag and sprinkle a bit of maizena in and shake the bag. Repeat this until the meat is lightly covered by the powder.
- Bring the oil on heat in the deep-fry pan (stand 7). The oil is ready when you see tiny bubbles coming up on the surface.
- Depending on the size of your deep-fry pan, you may need to fry the chicken in batches. The chicken will not deep-fry well if the pan it’s too full.
- Put the chicken piece by piece slowly in the pan and fry for 3 minutes. Meanwhile, put kitchen paper in another big bowl. This is to absorb the oil from the chicken after deep-frying.
- Fish the chicken out the pan with a sieve and/or wooden chopsticks and put in the paper bowl.
- Fry next batch for 3 minutes. Repeat the process if you have a lot of chicken.
- Once all chicken has been fried, a second round of 3 minutes deep-fry is required. This will give the chicken a crunchy texture and keeps the tenderness. The chicken should have a golden-brown colour.
- Let chicken rest in the kitchen paper bowl
- ————- Pre-stir-fry optional bimi or brocolli ————-
- Heat the stir-fry pan with 1 tbsp frying oil from pan or olive oil.
- Stir-fry the veggies for a bit. If you like the crunchiness, then only stir-fry for about max 2min.
- Sprinkle a pinch of salt, stir and scoop the veggies on a plate.
- ————- Start cooking sauce & blend ingredients ————-
- Continue with the same stir-fry pan. Put 1tbsp sesame oil and heat the pan on medium (stand 6).
- Fry the grated garlic until it’s yellow-ish.
- Add the grated ginger and chili in the pan, and fry for about 30 seconds.
- Pour the sauce mix in the pan. Cook for 1-2 minutes and keep stirring the sauce.
- Then re-stir the maizena mix well and add in the pan while stirring the sauce until it gets thick
- Add all the vegetables in the sauce and keep stirring in the pan
- Then add the fried chicken and stir all well in the sauce for a short time and switch of the heat.
- ————- Finishing touch ————-
- Scoop steamed rice in a bowl or plate.
- Scoop General Tso chicken on top of the rice or on the side.
- Garnish your dish with roasted sesame seeds on top.
Hope you like this dish and don’t find it too much work. You may agree it’s worth the effort after you have tried it 😉
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