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Chicken, duck & turkey Lunch / Dinner Main Courses

General Tso’s chicken

Published: 02.28.2021 » Last updated: 07.15.2022

Sweet, salty and a bit sour with subtle heat from ginger and chilies, General Tso’s chicken, as it is cooked today, is a far cry from the original which was “heavy, sour, hot and salty.”

General Tso's chicken served over rice

Who is General Tso?

General Tso’s chicken is touted as a Hunanese dish, but its history is both curious and controversial. The dish is purportedly named after Tso Tsung-t’ang, a Hunan-born statesman and military leader during the Qing Dynasty.

Peng Chang-kuei, the Taiwanese chef who invented the dish

Although there is more than one chef who claimed the honor of inventing the dish, the most widely accepted story is that it was first cooked in Taiwan by Peng Chang-kuei who was among the over two million people who fled to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Government after the Kuomintang Party lost to Mao’s Communist Party.

Peng was born in Hunan and had been an apprentice of the famous chef Tsao Chingchen. As banquet chef, he invented many dishes in Taiwan. Although he later couldn’t remember exactly when he first cooked Genral Tso’s chicken except that it was sometime in the 1950s, in an interview in 2004, he mentioned that there was no sugar in the original recipe.

Originally the flavors of the dish were typically Hunanese — heavy, sour, hot and salty.

“Hunan Resources” in The New York Times Magazine

The Americanization of General Tso’s chicken

When Peng opened his first restaurant in New York in the 1970s, he altered the recipe to suit to the palate of Americans. There have been numerous adaptations since by various chefs, and none of these adaptations taste like the original.

Tossing marinated chicken in starch

In our home version of the dish, we use chicken thigh fillets that we marinate in soy sauce, rice vinegar, chili oil, salt, grated garlic and grated ginger. The marinated chicken is ten tossed with starch before frying.

Frying marinated chicken fillets

The chicken is deep fried until browned and crisp and left to allow any excess oil to drip while the sauce is prepared.

Cooking sauce for General Tso's chicken

The sauce partly mimics the flavors of the marinade because it also has ginger, garlic, soy sauce and salt. But it is the sauce that gives the dish its signature sweetness because of the addition of hoisin sauce and sugar.

General Tso's chicken in wok

After the sauce has thickened, the fried chicken fillets are tossed in. General Tso’s chicken is ready to serve.

Full recipe below

General Tso’s chicken

Connie Veneracion
There are three stages in cooking General Tso's chicken: frying marinated chicken fillets, cooking the sauce until reduced and tossing the chicken in it.
General Tso's chicken garnished with scallions and sesame seeds
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Prep Time 15 mins
Cook Time 15 mins
Marinating time 1 hr
Total Time 1 hr 30 mins
Course Main Course
Cuisine Asian Fusion
Servings 4 people

Ingredients
  

  • 600 grams chicken thigh fillets - skin on

Marinade

  • 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon chili oil - (we used Lee Kum Kee)
  • 1 teaspoon rock salt
  • ¼ teaspoon grated garlic
  • ¼ teaspoon grated ginger

To cook the chicken

  • 1 cup corn starch
  • cooking oil - for deep frying

Sauce

  • 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine
  • 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
  • 2 tablespoons white sugar
  • 1 teaspoon chili flakes
  • ¼ teaspoon grated garlic
  • ¼ teaspoon grated ginger
  • ¾ cup chicken broth - unseasoned or lightly seasoned
  • salt - as needed
  • 1 tablespoon tapioca starch - or corn starch

To garnish

  • sliced scallions
  • toasted sesame seeds

Instructions
 

Marinate the chicken

  • Pat the chicken fillets dry and cut into one-inch cubes.
  • Placed the cubed chicken fillets in a bowl, add the rest of the ingredients for the marinade and mix well.
  • Cover the bowl and leave to soak in the fridge for at least an hour.

Fry the chicken

  • Stir the chicken and drain into a large mixing bowl.
  • Dump in a cup of corn starch and toss to coat each piece uniformly.
  • Dump the contents of the bowl into a strainer, shake and toss a few times to remove excess starch.
  • In a wok or frying pan, heat enough cooking oil to reach a depth of three inches.
  • Drop in the chicken, one by one, and fry (in batches so as not to overcrowd the pan) until the crust is crisp and the chicken is cooked through. Each batch should be fully cooked after three minutes of frying.

Cook the sauce

  • In a clean wok or frying pan, stir together all the ingredients for the sauce.
  • Set the heat to medium and cook the sauce, stirring, until thickened and no longer cloudy.
  • Set the heat to medium-low and continue cooking the sauce until reduced and thick enough for a canal to form when you drag a spatula across the bottom of the pan.
  • Taste the sauce. Depending on whether the chicken broth is unseasoned or lightly seasoned, you may need to add salt to balance with the sweetness.

Assemble the dish

  • Dump the fried chicken fillets into the sauce.
  • Toss repeatedly until the chicken cubes have soaked up the sauce.
  • Serve your General Tso's chicken topped with sliced scallions and toasted sesame seeds.
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Keyword Chicken Fillet, Fried Chicken

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Connie Veneracion, Chiang Mai, 2020

Hi, I’m Connie!

Welcome to Umami Days, a blog that advocates innovative home cooking for pleasurable everyday dining. No trendy diets, no food fads and definitely no ludicrous recipe names like crustless quiche, noodleless pho or chocolate lasagna.

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