Cooking via computer
A couple of weeks ago, at the Roger Smith Cookbook Conference, I had the pleasure of meeting lots of writers, editors, and authors. One person I had the chance to talk to was Diana Kuan from the site Appetite for China and the recently published The Chinese Takeout Cookbook. During the season for Chinese New Year, she’s put together a virtual potluck of seven of the recipes from the book. Each of the bloggers who make one of the dishes before the end of the festivities is entered into a drawing for some really great prizes. I haven’t had much chance to participate in blogger events recently with culinary school studies, so I decided to take some time over the holiday weekend to throw together one of the dishes from the book.
General Tso’s Chicken
General Tso’s Chicken is one of my favorite Chinese restaurant dishes, and it was great to find an easy recipe to make this at home. The crispy chicken had the perfect balance of sweet-tart-spicy when dressed in the sauce. It was difficult for me not to munch on the searing hot chicken pieces the moment they came out of the fragrant sauce, leaving nothing to plate for the photo. I used chicken thighs, as the recipe called for, but I also wonder about using chicken breasts or both the next time. This dish would be a great addition to the Chinese New Year’s celebration table.
Ingredients
Chicken marinating
Chicken in cornstarch
Frying the chicken
Scooping chicken out of the fryer
Pile of crispy fried chicken
Sauce ingredients mixed together
Sauce reducing
Chicken dressed with sauce
General Tso’s Chicken
Buon appetito!
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