General Tso's Chicken - redux

Well we liked the recipe so much, I made it again tonight. Less spice, more chicken and we took photos.

See below:

General Tso's Chicken

We decided about a month ago that we should try to make something at least based on recipes that we have in numerous previously-unused cookbooks, but we've only now got around to cooking something from them. We opted for General Tso's Chicken from one of our cookbooks - it was between that and an Indian Butter Chicken. We had most of the ingredients, so it was an easy option. One quick shop later and we had everything we needed.

Although I've spent quite a bit of time in North America I've never actually had it before at a Chinese restaurant. There doesn't seem to have been a migration over to Europe (and certainly not over here to the British Virgin Islands). It sounded good, so we thought we'd give it a go.

Be warned, whilst the actual preparation and cooking time isn't that much, you will need to marinate the chicken for an hour or so...

The recipe that I ended up cooking (since I usually go by instinct and deviate from recipes) is as follows:

Serves two:

Two normal sized boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into 2cm cubes

2 tablespoons of mirin (or other rice wine)

1 tablespoon of cornflour or cornstarch

4 tablespoons of Kikkoman soy sauce (full salt!)

3 tablespoons sesame oil

1/2 a small tub of dried (candied) citrus peel (enough to provide 2 tablespoons of finely chopped peel)

1/2 cup peanut oil

1 1/2 teaspoons of chilli flakes (halve it if you're not a fan of spicy food!)

2 tablespoons finely chopped ginger (fresh)

1 cup finely chopped spring onions

2 teaspoons organic cane sugar (or other if that's too much of a pain)

steamed rice to serve with

Directions:

Put the mirin, cornflour, 2 tablespoons of the soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of the sesame oil into a glass or plastic bowl. Put in the diced chicken and mix around thoroughly so that it is all covered in the marinade sauce. Once you've done that, put some cling film over the bowl and place it in the fridge for an hour.

Soak the citrus peel in just boiled water for 20 minutes and then drain and chop it up fairly finely so that you've got about 2 tablespoons of peel.

In a little ramekin or other easily pourable container, put the sugar, the remaining soy sauce and the sesame oil and mix it all together. If it saves space, you can put the spring onions and the peel together as well.

Heat the peanut oil in a non-stick (if you have one) wok to a high heat and then using a slotted spoon to drain the chicken, stir fry it in small batches and then remove from the wok and drain it in a wire basket, sieve or colander. Once you've finished cooking all the chicken (so that it is lightly browned and cooked through), drain all but a tablespoon of oil (or remove it all if there are burnt bits in it and replace).

Heat the oil back up until it's hot, then add the ginger and chilli and stir fry it for 10-15 seconds. Then put the chicken back in and add the onion, peel, and the sugar/soy sauce/sesame oil mix and stir fry for another 3 minutes or so until it's warm through and well combined.

Serve with the steamed rice and put more spring onion on for a garnish if you wish.

It's very easy to make and very tasty, although with the amount of chilli I put in (which I suggest you adjust down) it was very spicy. Nevertheless, Estelle had seconds despite the heat, which I take to be the sign of a good meal. Unfortunately I didn't think to take a photograph, but next time I make it I'll do so.