General Tso Chicken

For tonight’s dinner, we traveled to China! We made General Tso Chicken using another Jet Tila recipe (found on the Food Network Kitchen app)! And let me tell you – it was better than the General Tso we get from Chinese takeout restaurants! The best part wasn’t just how delicious and satisfying this turned out, but the fact that Jet Tila added our Instagram post to his Insta story. #FanGirlingHardcore

Let us start by saying that this was likely one of our favorite recipes thus far. We started by heating up our frozen broccoli florets, we then set it aside to allow to cool so that we could chop the florets into smaller pieces. If using fresh broccoli, follow Jet Tila’s recommendation and cook covered in a bowl with 2 Tbs of water for 2 minutes, or until tender.

We then prepped our chicken by cutting it into cubes, rinsing in cold water, and patting dry. Make your chicken dredge by combining the tempura flour and 1 cup of water. Once a thick batter has formed, set aside and start heating the oil in your skillet. Dredge your chicken in some of the tempura flour and then coat them in the prepared batter.

Once fully dredged, fry the chicken. Fry in two batches for about 6 to 8 minutes. Make sure you allow your chicken to drain on a bed of paper towels. Next heat up some more oil in the skillet and add the already fried chicken, onion, chiles, broccoli, and 1/3 of the ginger and garlic and cook for about 30 seconds. This is when the mouthwatering aromas really start to fill your kitchen.

Put the pan for your rice on the burner and bring the salted water to a boil (we always add about a tablespoon of olive oil to the water). Once the water has begun to boil, add the uncooked rice and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add the oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, chili garlic sauce, sugar, white vinegar, soy sauce, cornstarch slurry, red food coloring (we used 1 drop), 1/3 cup water, and the remaining chopped ginger and garlic in a separate saucepan. Make sure you whisk the sauce until it comes to a good simmer. Allow it to simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Once the sauce has thickened, remove from heat.

Stir the sauce into the chicken mixture, ensuring it fully coats all ingredients in the pan. Allow it to simmer, stirring frequently, for approximately 2 minutes. Serve over a bed of rice (if following how we did it), top with chopped scallions, and enjoy!

NOTE: Fun fact, we used one of our cupcake tins to put our pre-measured ingredients in to make cooking easier.

Ingredients:

Chicken:

• 1 1/2 cups broccoli florets
• 1 1/2 quarts vegetable oil, plus 2 Tbs for stir-frying
• 2 pounds boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch dice
• 1 1/2 cups tempura flour, plus 1 cup for dredging
• 1 cup cold water
• 1/2 onion (or 1 small onion), cut into large dice
• 10 to 12 (we used 4-5) whole dried Thai chiles
• 1/2 Tbs minced ginger root
• 1/2 Tbs chopped garlic (we used minced garlic)
• 1 cup rice (optional – we like to put our General Tso Chicken over a bed of rice)

Sauce:

• 1/2 cup oyster sauce
• 1 Tbs hoisin sauce
• 1 Tbs chili garlic sauce
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 6 Tbs white vinegar
• 2 Tbs soy sauce
• 1 Tbs cornstarch mixed with 1 Tbs water
• 1 drop red food coloring (optional)
• 3 scallions, sliced on the bias