.general tso's chicken. (& contest)

Did any of you notice over >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>?
It dawned on me yesterday that I have had my blog now for a year. Yep... can you believe it? So to celebrate ONE YEAR, I'm going to give away a TWO DOZEN of my famous Almondine Sugar Cookies to one winner. All you have to do is email me at creatingpostitnotes@yahoo.com to enter. One entry per person, please. You have until the end of the month (Feb 28th) to enter so get right on it!

Now on to the good stuff. Last week we celebrated Chinese New Year. To celebrate, I usually make chinese food. This year, we had sweet and sour chicken, eggrolls, rice, and General Tso's Chicken - my husband's favorite.

The sweet flavor mixed in with heat was just perfect. If you have kids, they might not like it so just give them sweet and sour chicken. ;)

Begin by making the sauce. In a bowl put:

2 Tbsp dark soy sauce (mushroom sauce)
1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 tsp Chinese rice wine (or sake)
1 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp chicken broth
1 tsp ginger, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp cornstarch

Mix everything well with a whisk. Set aside.


Take one bunch of green onion and cut off the green tops. Slice longways and then into 1 1/2" pieces. Set aside.










You're also going to need about 6-10 of these babies. You can find dried red chilies in your ethnic aisle. If you can find dried Thai chilies and like that much heat, use those..otherwise use these more tame ones.

You need to crack/break these open for the heat to absorb into your food. Set these aside with the green onion.




Cut up 4 chicken thighs into bite sized pieces.












Put the chicken in a large ziploc and add 1 egg and 1 Tbsp soy sauce. Seal up the bag and smoosh everything together.

Add enough cornstarch to liberally coat the chicken pieces.







You need to heat oil in a wok or fry daddy or whatever you might use to deep fry. Heat it to 350-375. Carefully add pieces of chicken to the oil and fry until nice and golden.









Pull from the oil and let drain on paper towels. Repeat until all of the chicken has been cooked.











Heat 1-2 Tbsp red chili oil in another wok or skillet (or you can dump out the oil from the original wok into a pot, clean and then use again for this step -- entirely too much work for me. lol)

Add the broken up chili peppers and green onion and saute for about 1-2 minutes. The fragrance of the onion will become very aroma-ful.





Add the fried chicken pieces. When the pieces start browning it's time to move on to the next step.











Push all of the chicken and onions to the side to create a little well in the center.











Remember that sauce we made? Time to add it. It will begin thickening immediately so dump quickly and stir stir stir.










Stir in the chicken and let that delicious sauce coat each piece.

Serve immediately!