Tag: #deepfry

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General Tso chicken

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?

  1. ————- Marinate chicken ————-
  2. Remove fat and cut the chicken in bite size pieces and put in medium size bowl.
  3. Marinate the chicken with 1tbsp cooking rice wine.
  4. ————- Prepare sauce ————-
  5. Use a small bowl to prepare the sauce.
  6. 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.
  7. Put 1 Tbsp white vinegar in bowl.
  8. Put 1 Tbsp ketchup in bowl. Personally, I prefer using Heinz.
  9. Put 1 Tbsp white sugar in bowl
  10. Put ½ tsp white pepper in bowl and mix all the ingredients.
  11. ————- Remaining sauce preparation ————-
  12. 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.
  13. Grate 2x small garlic cloves.
  14. Grate 1xtbsp ginger.
  15. Chop 1x chilli fine.
  16. Use a small cup to prepare maizena mix: put 1tsp maizena and 2tbsp water and mix it well.
  17. ————- Cut vegetables ————-
  18. If you do not like cucumber skin, you can peel this off. Then slice the cucumber lengthwise in 4 and remove the seeds.
  19. Then cut cucumber in bite pieces.
  20. Cut cherry tomatoes in half.
  21. Cut optional veggie of choice in pieces. Wash beforehand if needed.
  22. ————- Deep-fry chicken ————-
  23. 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.  
  24. 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.
  25. 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.
  26. 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.
  27. Fish the chicken out the pan with a sieve and/or wooden chopsticks and put in the paper bowl.
  28. Fry next batch for 3 minutes. Repeat the process if you have a lot of chicken.
  29. 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.
  30. Let chicken rest in the kitchen paper bowl
  31. ————- Pre-stir-fry optional bimi or brocolli ————-
  32. Heat the stir-fry pan with 1 tbsp frying oil from pan or olive oil.
  33. Stir-fry the veggies for a bit. If you like the crunchiness, then only stir-fry for about max 2min.
  34. Sprinkle a pinch of salt, stir and scoop the veggies on a plate.
  35. ————- Start cooking sauce & blend ingredients ————-
  36. Continue with the same stir-fry pan. Put 1tbsp sesame oil and heat the pan on medium (stand 6).
  37. Fry the grated garlic until it’s yellow-ish.
  38. Add the grated ginger and chili in the pan, and fry for about 30 seconds.
  39. Pour the sauce mix in the pan. Cook for 1-2 minutes and keep stirring the sauce.
  40. Then re-stir the maizena mix well and add in the pan while stirring the sauce until it gets thick
  41. Add all the vegetables in the sauce and keep stirring in the pan
  42. Then add the fried chicken and stir all well in the sauce for a short time and switch of the heat.
  43. ————- Finishing touch ————-
  44. Scoop steamed rice in a bowl or plate.
  45. Scoop General Tso chicken on top of the rice or on the side.
  46. 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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Asian Fried Spring Rolls

Asian fried spring rolls are one of my favorite food. Spring rolls are a large variety of filled, rolled appetizers or dim sum found in East Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian cuisine. The name is a literal translation of the Chinese chūn juǎn (春卷 ‘spring roll’).

In Chinese cuisine, spring rolls are savoury rolls with cabbage and other vegetable fillings inside a thinly wrapped pastry and are usually eaten during the spring festival in mainland China, hence the name. Meat varieties are also popular such as with pork, chicken or shrimps. Every culture makes their own variety of ingredients which make this appetizer so diverse and special.

My recipe is with chicken, but you can replace that with something else or just stay with a delicious vegetarian bite. If the latter, prepare with more vegetables and vermicelli.

Each time, I make a batch of unfried rolls and freeze them in for a next snacking moment. This would save me a lot of prep-time when I’m craving for an Asian crispy fried spring roll 😊

Cooking time: approx. 2hrs and serves ~15 rolls, including cool off time.

Tip:

  1. Make a batch and freeze unfried spring rolls in the freezer. You can fry frozen rolls easily and it taste like freshly made.
  2. Buy your dipping sauce or make it homemade: spicy sweet chili, soy sauce & rice vinegar or Vietnamese nuoc cham (fish sauce).  

Ingredients & Tools

  • 250gr chicken (thigh) filet or ground chicken meat
  • 8-10x shitake mushroom
  • 2x garlic clove
  • 2x medium size winter carrots
  • 4x stalk spring onion
  • 1–2 chili, depends on if you like a spicy punch to it
  • 100gr or 1 piece rice vermicelli, you can buy this in an Asian store.
  • 1x egg white
  • Seasoning: sesame oil, soy sauce, pepper, salt
  • Optional: romaine lettuce to wrap spring rolls for a refreshing taste
  • Sweet chili sauce for dipping
  • Spring roll pastry sheets ~20x20cm, you can buy this frozen in an Asian store. Unfreeze the pack and try splitting the pack in batches or in half. Use 1 batch and put the rest back in the freezer for the next time.
  • 0,5 – 1 litre sunflower oil, depends how big your deep fry pan is. No need to fill it up, you just need a layer for about 5 cm up from the bottom.
  • 1 big bowl
  • Grater for carrots (thin slice grater)
  • 1 big frying pan
  • 1 big pan to deep fry
  • Frying plier or long chop sticks
  • Sieve
  • Deep bowl and kitchen paper
  • To keep extra spring rolls in the freezer, required: airtight bags or box and baking paper.

What to do?

  1. ————- Soften the vermicelli ————-
  2. Break the vermicelli in ~4cm length and soften it in hand warm water until it gets a little bit soft. Then drain it out in a sieve.
  3. ——–Cut ingredients & Pan fry ——–
  4. Cut the chicken filet in very thin sliced pieces (simpler way is to use ground chicken meat) and put in the bowl. Personally, I like to use chicken thy because its more tender.
  5. Season the chicken with a sprinkle of soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper and salt.
  6. Chop mushrooms in thin slices. Put in the bowl.
  7. Mince 2 garlic cloves. Put in the bowl.
  8. Grate 2 carrots. Put in the bowl.
  9. Slice the spring inion and put in the bowl.
  10. Optional: slice the chili very thin and put in the bowl including the seeds.
  11. Mix all ingredients in the bowl and add a pinch of salt.
  12. Pan fry all ingredients on medium heat until the chicken is cooked. Then switch off the heat.
  14. Mix the vermicelli in the pan to make it softer by the heat.
  15. Let the ingredients cool off in the pan.
  16. When its cooled down, scoop the ingredients back in the big bowl.
  17. ————- Start rolling & Heat the oil ————-
  18. Beat 1x egg white.
  19. Heat the sunflower oil at the lowest stand.
  20. Take a sheet, put a layer of ingredients close to a corner and start rolling towards to the opposite corner. Important is to roll the ingredients tight in the sheet and there should be no empty spaces in between. Use the egg white as glue by closing the sheet end. Watch the video here on how to roll a spring roll.
  21. Storing spring rolls in the freezer: layer the rolls on a baking sheet with at least ½ cm distance from each other, the sheets should not touch each other. When you lay an extra layer on top, put a baking sheet between the layers. This is to avoid spring rolls sticking on each other.
  22. Put a kitchen paper sheet in a deep bowl. This is to drain out the oil after frying.
  23. Heat the oil up until you see little bubbles in the oil. Lower the heat stand a little bit, the oil must not overboiling.
  24. Gently put the spring rolls one by one in the oil pan. Do not fill the pan full as you need some space in turning the spring rolls with a frying plier or chop sticks.
  26. Fry the spring rolls until the sheet is hard and light brown, approx. 3min each side.
  27. Take the spring rolls out of the pan and let it drain upright in the deep bowl
  29. Leave it for 3-5 min and layer the spring rolls flat on a plate.
  30. ————- Ready to Eat ————-
  31. Dipping sauce, most simple is to have a bottle of sweet chili sauce at home.
  32. Wrap a spring roll in a lettuce leaf, dip it in the sauce and bon appetite.
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