Go to the Recipe: General Tso’s Chicken
Thank you for this! I'm always so disappointed with the General Tso's at the average Chinese-American restaurant, and I always knew it could be taken up a few notches. Can't wait to try this.
If you haven't watched it, the documentary "The Search for General Tso" is a must. More about the challenges faced by Chinese immigrants to the US, but illustrated by the cuisine they invented that is uniquely American.
Hi Tim
Is there any reason I couldn't substitute a generic Benefiber for the wheat dextrin you link to from Modernist? Their 4 oz wheat dextrin, with shipping, is over $18 and Equate generic Benefiber which has wheat dextrin as the only ingredient, is under $10 for 12.7oz. Thanks. Looking forward to trying this soon.
The details on the breading is really helpful. Understanding both why ingredients are chosen and the characteristics they bring really give me insights that value from ChefSteps.
The sauce from the Kung Pao Ribs from years back is a staple in our home, and I suspect the sauces from General Tso's, Orange and Sesame chicken recipes will join them
Thank you! Very excited to try this recipe out soon. Any thoughts on putting out a recipe for a good Chinese-American egg roll to go along with it? We had the amazing egg rolls from Chef's Special in Chicago and would love to be able to make something similar at home.
Very excited to try this! I do have a query about the substitution for Trisol, though.
Unfortunately, I cannot get wheat dextrin here in the UK. However, I do have CrispFilm, which is a modified high-amylose cornstarch which can be used for fried foods to form a crispy glassy coating and prevents excess oil absorption. Any idea if it can be used as a substitute?
Picking up ingredients for this tomorrow. But hey, something weird is going on here. Tim Chin's mannerisms and speech cadence are so similar to Grant's that it's creepy. Either ChefSteps presenters go through some sort of torture training until they act like Grant, or Grant shot the video and it was AI-enhanced to turn Grant into Tim Chin.
You can definitely substitute Evercrisp in this recipe for Benefiber as a 1-for-1 swap by weight. Anecdotally, Benefiber gives you a very similar result (though not exactly the same as Evercrisp; Modernist Pantry likely has a proprietary process which makes it ideal for fried batters/coatings). If you observe both products side by side, you may notice some differences in granule size and texture. But at the end of the day, wheat dextrin has the same properties in either case, and helps to keep things crisper for longer.Just make sure to use unflavored Benefiber (unless you're feeling adventurous.)
Hope this helps!
That sounds like a great substitution. We don't have much experience with CrispFilm, but in tandem with potato starch, it would definitely help keep the chicken crispier. Modified starches are typically great options for dredges like this.
I'd say go for it! And let us know how it goes.
Thanks!
I've made this twice. Too much dark soy sauce (Pearl River Bridge) for my taste the first time so I cut that amount by half the second time and preferred that result. I used generic Benefiber for the dredge and the little nubs in the coating kept a great crunch after saucing. Wondering if joining the Benefiber with the coarse sweet potato starch in the recent Taiwanese Fried Cutlet recipe would be the best for all these fried chicken recipes or would add too much crunch, if that's a thing. Thanks again.
The chicken is certainly crispy, but the sauce is overpowered by the dark soy. I was disappointed after all of the effort and committing the whole batch to the sauce. Advise that others try the sauce and adjust or replace if it=t is not to your liking.
Hey Ted!
Dang, I'm bummed this didn't turn out to your liking on the first go.
I'm curious - did you use Pearl River Bridge dark soy sauce for this recipe?
The reason I ask: I developed this recipe with Lee Kum Kee soy sauces (despite what the photo for the tip within the recipe would indicate, I am personally team LKK all the way; this is a topic of much debate/contention between our team). And it's funny, I was very mindful of the dark soy sauce amount here during development, since many recipes I've encountered have too much dark soy sauce, IMO (I'm sensitive to that flavor as well!). I find LKK dark soy sauce to be a little less intense than PRB, and well suited to the recipe as written in the given amounts.
@Al's suggestion to halve the dark soy amount seems to be the play here if you're using Pearl River Bridge.
Hope this clears things up!
Any ideas for subbing in alternative proteins? I tried it with tofu in place of the chicken, which absorbed too much of the marinade making it difficult to bread, but that's on me of course. I found that 60g of marinade was way too much to add to the breading, and made it a basically unusable paste towards the end of the breading process. Also, thought the sauce was just about perfect using LKK.
