General Tso’s Chicken is a dish with a legendary pedigree. According to Chinese food expert and restaurateur Ed Schoenfeld, who co-owns the two Red Farm eateries in Manhattan, in prerevolutionary China the best cooks were retained by wealthy patrons to prepare elaborate, multicourse banquets. Legend has it that a cook for the governor of Hunan province, General Zuo (“Tso”) Zongtang, perfected the dish and named it after his boss. After the communist revolution, a cook from Zuo’s household decamped to Taiwan, where he opened a restaurant featuring General Tso’s chicken. The dish migrated stateside to two 1970s-era New York restaurants. As a young manager at one of them, Schoenfeld sampled General Tso’s chicken dozens of times. While many renditions are sticky-sweet and heavily battered, Schoenfeld returns the dish to its Hunanese roots, with moist, juicy, triple-fried chunks of dark meat in a perfectly balanced, sweet-and-tart sauce. With each of the three fryings, the oil is heated to a slightly higher temperature, coaxing the chicken to a crisp on the outside while remaining tender within.
Ingredients
- 1 large egg white
- 1½ tablespoons Shaoxing wine or dry sherry
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup plus 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs, or thighs and legs, cut into 1 ½-inch chunks
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 5 cups vegetable oil, for frying
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine or dry sherry
- 2½ tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon chinkiang (black rice) rice vinegar or sherry vinegar (optional)
- 2½ teaspoons potato starch dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
- ½ teaspoon vegetable oil
- 5 dried red chiles, whole or broken (broken makes the dish very spicy)
- 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon thinly sliced fresh ginger, cut into 1/3-inch squares
- 3 scallions (white and light green parts), cut into 1/3-inch pieces
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
-
Marinate the Chicken
- In a medium bowl, combine the egg white, wine, salt, and 3 tablespoons of the cornstarch. Add the chicken. Using your hands, toss to coat until the cornstarch has dissolved, then add the oil. Cover and marinate the chicken in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours or up to 48 hours (the longer you marinate, the smoother the chicken will be). Triple-fry the Chicken
- In a wok, heat the oil to 300°F. Place the remaining ½ cup cornstarch in a bowl, then add the marinated chicken, turning to coat evenly. Transfer the coated pieces to a colander, shaking to remove any excess cornstarch. Working in 2 batches, carefully add the chicken to the oil and cook for 30 seconds, stirring gently to separate the pieces from one another, until the pieces have just turned color. Using a spider, remove the chicken from the oil and rest it in the colander. Heat the oil to 375°F. Return the chicken to the wok and cook, stirring gently, about 45 seconds. Remove the chicken from the oil and rest it in the colander; Reheat the oil to 400°F. Return the chicken to the wok and cook until it develops a light, golden crust, an additional 1½ to 2 minutes. Transfer to a colander or wok strainer to drain. Clean your wok completely. Dress the Chicken
- In a medium bowl, combine the soy sauce, dark soy sauce, wine, sugar, white vinegar, rice vinegar (if using), potato starch slurry, and ½ teaspoon water. Place the wok over the highest possible heat, then add the vegetable oil and chiles (make sure to do this in a well-ventilated place—the smoke from the chiles can be quite caustic). Stir the chiles in the oil until they start to scorch and turn mahogany brown, then quickly add the garlic, ginger, and scallions and cook, stirring, for 15 seconds (don’t let anything brown). Add the reserved sauce to the wok, stirring. As soon as the sauce thickens and comes to a boil, return the chicken pieces to the wok, stir to coat, and cook for 30 seconds. Remove from the heat, sprinkle with the sesame oil, and serve immediately over cooked white rice.