Healthy General Tso's chicken

[freemotion]

Made this a couple nights ago....YUM!!!! My changes to the recipe are in {brackets.} It came out too sweet, so I will leave out the stevia completely next time, and add it to taste after. I think it was because I substituted sweeter ingredients, like the miso and the brown rice vinegar.

I am a little afraid of peppers, being a hot pepper newbie, so you could use more peppers. I just used what I had from the garden.

I followed the instructions on coating the chicken pieces, but found that it was not needed, what with the sauce. You could batter the chicken and deep fry it if you want the typical chinese restaurant taste...too much work for me most nights of the week.

This was definitely worth the effort, and I will be making it again. You could make the jar of sauce mixture in advance and store it in the fridge, and wash and cut up the veggies and the chicken in advance, so at suppertime, it would be quite quick. You can serve it over rice. The recipe is for four, we ate the whole thing, just the two of us, without the rice. We wanted popcorn that evening, and limit our carbs. I would serve it over brown rice cooked in chicken broth, too, though, to make it go further, especially if we had company.

General Tsos Chicken

***Sauce***
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons water
3/4 {1.5 tsp} teaspoon minced fresh ginger OR 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
teaspoon {1 Tbsp} minced garlic {fermented or fresh}
3/8 cup sugar {4 squirts (half dropper) stevia extract..leave out next time}
1/4 cup soy sauce {brown rice miso}
1 cup low sodium chicken broth {homemade chicken broth}
2 tablespoons white vinegar {brown rice vinegar}
2 tablespoons sherry or white wine {Two Buck Chuck Chardonnay}
***Meat***
1 1/2 pound boneless chicken, cut into chucks
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup cornstarch {just saut the chicken naked next time}
1 cup sliced green onions {fermented or fresh}
4 small dried hot peppers {one cayenne and one Hot Portugal, fresh}

Directions:
For Sauce: Place the above ingredients in a jar and shake well to dissolve the cornstarch.

For Meat: Place chicken and egg in zipper baggie and shake to coat chicken evenly. Add cornstarch and mix until chicken is evenly covered. Deep fry chicken at 350 degrees until crispy. Drain. {Fry in chicken fat in cast iron pan.}

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a skillet. {Use remaining fat from frying chicken.} Add onions and peppers and stir fry about 30 seconds. Add sauce mixture. Cook and stir until thick. Add chicken and cook just long enough to heat through. {Add lightly steamed veggies and heat through. Asparagus, broccoli florets, red pepper chunks, green beans, snow peas, etc, whatever is available.}



http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/462/General_Tsos_Chicken45112.shtml

 

[Dace]

That looks great Free...I may have to try that next week!

 

[enjoy the ride]

OOOOO- so good.

I do have one thing to offer for help to get rid of breading. My Mom learned her Chinese cooking from a bunch of Benedictine nuns in Tokyo. They were refugees from communist China.
They did not bread but instead rolled chunks of meat (mostly pork as I remember but I've done other types too) in corn starch then stir fried them in a pretty hot wok with pre-heated oil. Made the edges of the meat crunchy without the thick breading. I prefer this way but then I grew up with Benedictine sweet and sour pork as my birthday dinner.

 

[me&thegals]

Thank you! My family will thank you, too. It is a favorite, but with 4 full eaters in the family right now it's getting spendy to eat out.

 

[freemotion]

OOOOO- so good.

I do have one thing to offer for help to get rid of breading. My Mom learned her Chinese cooking from a bunch of Benedictine nuns in Tokyo. They were refugees from communist China.
They did not bread but instead rolled chunks of meat (mostly pork as I remember but I've done other types too) in corn starch then stir fried them in a pretty hot wok with pre-heated oil. Made the edges of the meat crunchy without the thick breading. I prefer this way but then I grew up with Benedictine sweet and sour pork as my birthday dinner.

Ummm....you know the rules....recipe?

Thanks for the tip! Mine didn't come out crispy with the cornstarch, but I used chicken fat at a lower temp (it likes to pop!) and didn't deep fry and don't have a wok! But we still loved it. I will try it with pork when we raise our own.

 

[big brown horse]

OH, Free!! That sounds wonderful!



About chicken fat, do you just skim it off your cooled borth to "harvest" it? How do you store it?

 

[freemotion]

Yes, I just skim it. This is another reason why I don't flavor my broth while making it, so the fat is unflavored, too. I have these little 1/2 cup measuring caps that come with my supplements and I freeze it in them. I also freeze some in a ziploc and flatten it out so I can break off a piece. Someone else mentioned using an icecube tray, I think I'm gonna do that, too, and transfer the cubes to a ziploc.

 

[enjoy the ride]

Sweet and sour sauce from memory- I hope it's right

!/4 c soy sauce, 1/3 c apple cider vinegar ( the wimpy rice vinegar is not to my taste with this hearty version), 2/3 c water, 3/4 c sugar in a small sauce pan. Add 2 Tbs of corn starch and blend in right away as you are heating over medium heat. You need to stir constantly or it will burn. There will be little brown flakes that start showing up, then start stirring faster, scraping the bottom often and when the whole thing turns dark brown and thick, it's ready. Only takes a few minutes. DO NOT leave the sauce while cooking- you will be doing another batch as it burns with alarming speed.

The meat can be chicken or pork,chunks of carrots, bell peppers, onion and pineapple. The meat is put in a bowl with cornstarch and stirred till coated. Then heat some oil in a wok-ish pan and stir fry the meat til done, add the carrots which need a little time to cook- then throw in the rest and stir fry til you happy with it- a little crisp in the veggies is nice because the sauce is killer hot because of all the sugar and will cook stuff a little more when you pour it over the rest of the stuff.

Not the red or pineapple restaurant version but I love it- and it's so fast to make. I have used the sauce for lots of other things like over rice, etc.

 

[Blackbird]

What the hell is a wok?

 

[freemotion]

The language, young man!! A wok is a sort of bowl used to cook in. You can cook some stuff longer and/or hotter by putting it in the bottom, and other things can be scooped up away from the heat by putting them further up the sides. It comes with a ring to steady it on the stove.