General Tso's Chicken

Since we're on such a roll, I thought I would do one more recipe for the month of September. My neighbor one row over at work had Chinese for lunch. And, boy, did it smell divine. So, I had this wonderful idea to try making General Tso's Chicken from scratch. I've never made this before, and went on a hunt to find the perfect recipe. Well, there were definitely plenty of recipes in google-land. I came across one that looked and sounded good. So, I decided to go with it. I thought it turned out pretty good, but I'm a little flummoxed as to what could be missing. The good thing about these recipes is you can tweak whichever way you'd like. Overall, the recipe was definitely very good!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp rice wine vinegar
3 tbsp hoisin sauce
3 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 cup water

1 tbsp Sesame Oil
6-8 sprigs green onions, chopped
3 tbsp fresh ginger, finely chopped or grated
Red Hot Pepper Flakes
1 lb boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes

Chicken Dredge
3 eggs
3/4 cup corn starch

Preparation
Combine first 6 ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

If you go to the website that this recipe came from it said to sautee the chicken in olive oil until browned. Well, I wanted to go all out and fry up some chicken. So, I used the chicken dredge from this recipe. Prepare the chicken dredge in a bowl by combining the 3 eggs (stir well) and the corn starch. Drop the chicken cubes in the bowl. Around this point you may want to start preparing your rice depending on how long it takes to cook. Prepare a deep pot with enough oil to fry up the chicken. Make sure the oil heats up to about 350 degrees. Fry about 7-8 pieces of chicken at a time. Place on paper towel. Continue frying until chicken is cooked.

Next, put the tablespoon of sesame oil in a wok or deep sautee pan. I forgot to get the green onions, so I used some scallions from my garden and about a cup of chopped white onions. Sautee for a couple minutes over medium heat. Pour in the sauce that you had set aside from earlier, and bring to a boil. I didn't feel like it thickened much so I added about a tablespoon of corn starch to the sauce. I also added some red pepper flakes, and 2 cloves garlic minced. I forgot the ginger, so instead I put about 1/4 tsp ground ginger in the sauce. Since it was about 20 minutes since I fried up the chicken I decided to fry it a second time. So, I heated the oil back up and in 3 batches re-fried the chicken. This helped to crisp it even more. I placed the fried chicken into the sauce mixture, and coated well. I topped the chicken over the rice and served.

(Click here for printable recipe)