Recipe for General Tso's Chicken

Have you found the terribly addicting website "Pinterest"?   If not, I suggest one of two things:  If you're a visual person and have some time every day to dawdle and browse around a really fun website, check it out.  If you're a super busy person who already wastes too much time on-line, stay away!  Seriously though, it is a great place to see all sorts of things from food and recipes, to ideas for decorating, funny pictures and sayings and so much more.  I found the inspiration for this recipe there.

Yield: 4 servings
Time: 45 minutes


Ingredients:

• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized chunks
• 1 1/2 cups cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup peanut oil, plus 1 tsp
• 1/4 tsp dried red chili flakes
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp white sesame seeds, for garnish
• 1 scallion, green parts thinly sliced, for garnish

Marinade

• 1 TBSP soy sauce
• 1TBSP sherry
• 2 egg whites

Sauce

• 1/4 cup chicken stock
• 1 1/2 TBSP tomato paste
• 1 TBSP soy sauce
• 1 TBSP rice vinegar
• 1 tsp hoisin sauce
• 1 tsp chili paste
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp cornstarch

Method:

• Mix the marinade ingredients together and marinade chicken for 15 minutes.
• Mix the sauce ingredients together and set aside.
• Heat 1 cup of peanut oil in a hot wok over med-high heat.
• While oil heats, drain chicken from marinade and toss in cornstarch to coat.  Shake excess cornstarch off and add chicken in batches to hot oil in wok.
• Cook chicken until well browned and cooked through, about 4 minutes.
• Remove chicken-drain on paper towels, and discard oil.  Wipe wok out with paper towels.
• Add 1 tsp peanut oil, garlic and red pepper flakes to hot wok and stir fry for 30 seconds until fragrant but don't burn garlic.
• Add in sauce (stir first if cornstarch has settled) and stir fry for 1-2 minutes until thickening.
• Add chicken to wok and cook until well coated and warmed through.
• Garnish with scallions and sesame seeds.

We don't have any really good Chinese restaurant here (I know this probably isn't authentic Chinese but...) so I was happy to find a relatively easy recipe reminiscent of good Chinese restaurant food.  Do you cook "Chinese" at home?

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