General Tso's Chicken

General Tso's Chicken is one of the most beloved dishes in Chinese-American cuisine. Known as a Hunanese dish, its actual roots to Hunan province are pretty tenuous. Fuchsia Dunlop has a fascinating write-up on the history of the dish in her Hunan cookbook, and excerpts of the story were printed in the New York Times.

Chef Peng - a Hunan-born chef who invented the dish while cooking for the exiled Nationalist party in Taiwan (read the NYT excerpt) - altered his creation for the very different taste buds he encountered when he moved to America. The Taiwanese version of the dish does not have any sugar; the adapted version for Americans does - not much, just a few teaspoons, but that's enough to give the sauce the characteristic sweetness for which it is so famous. Fuchsia has a recipe for each version in her cookbook and this week I tried both on back to back evenings. (Note: the recipe linked in the post title is for the Taiwanese version, not the Americanized version.)

The first step, obviously, is deep frying. I didn't think this out very well on the first night and did the frying in the wok. Which works in theory, only the wide opening and low sides meant splatters went everywhere - I have a splatter guard but it doesn't fit over all of the wok. On the second night, I wised up and did the frying portion in a different pot with high sides, and then did the sauce and final mixing in the wok.

General note about frying - if you do this with any kind of regularity, do yourself a favor and buy two things from your local cooking supply store. One is an oil thermometer. This is a different device from a probe thermometer (also useful, but for different applications) and it removes all guesswork about oil temperature. In frying the chicken pieces, I could watch the oil temperature fluctuate with each new addition of room-temp chicken to the hot oil, and could allow the oil to get back to the right range before adding the next batch, etc. No wonder my first attempts at frying were such a disaster - oil temperature is key. The other insanely useful device is the thing I'm holding chicken pieces with in this picture. Williams Sonoma calls theirs a "spider skimmer" and it's essentially a wire basket on the end of a stick. It is the best tool for scooping things out of hot oil. The thin wire lets most of the oil escape, so you don't end up with little pools hiding in your ladle that then drip all over the paper towels you laid out to keep your freshly fried food crisp. With these two tools, any pot with high sides and a splatter guard, I've been able to fry with confidence. Well, more confidence than I initially had, anyway.

The technique for both recipes is pretty much identical. The only differences are minor ones, in the ingredients lists. One has sugar, one doesn't - one has twice as much potato flour as the other - small variances like that. The sauce ingredients are slightly different - the Americanized version calls for Chinkiang (black) vinegar, the Taiwanese for clear rice vinegar.

At the end of the day, we liked the Americanized version better, hands down. The Taiwanese version was good - it had a heat and slight sourness that was delicious, but "General Tso's", to us as Americans, means a sweet-hot sauce. That's just what we're used to and what we associate with this dish. I should point out though - whereas the General Tso's you get from takeout restaurants here in the US has a syrupy-sweet sauce, this is definitely not that. This is not syrupy.

When I made another of Fuchsia's recipes - for Gong Bao Chicken - I realized through trial and error that increasing the sauce in proportion to the other ingreidents threw off the whole balance of flavors. General Tso's, though, is much less of a balancing act, flavor-wise. Sichuan cuisine is all about seasoning complexity, whereas Hunanese flavors are much more straightforward. So I might try doing more of the sauce in future, and see how that goes. There wasn't enough to moisten the rice, and we really liked that sweet-spicy sauce!

Additional side perk of home wok experimentation: any night I don't know what to do for dinner, Matt now suggests trying a new Chinese dish.

Chicken Piccata

Chicken Piccata is one of Matt's favorite dishes, so I've played with various recipes for it a great deal looking for "the one." Ina Garten's was the 3rd or 4th I tried, and it was the closest to what I was looking for. However, I use her recipe more as a set of guidelines and do not follow it line by line.

For one thing, her recipe does not call for capers (?!) so the first thing I did was add those to the sauce. After trying various amounts, I settled on 1/4 - 1/3 teaspoon of capers (without any of the brine in the jar) per recipe. It doesn't seem like much, but the capers have a powerful flavor and using much more than that gave us more of a caper-y sauce than we wanted - we were after a balance between the capers and lemon juice.

Her step of putting the squeezed lemon halves in the pan with the sauce while it is reducing is cute, but threw the balance the other way, toward being too lemon-y. So I skip that. Also, it goes without saying that squeezing fresh lemon juice is the way to go here. I have yet to find a recipe that does not benefit from squeezing fresh. It's easy, takes just a few minutes and the result is always far superior.

I've tried many variations on the chicken breading, most notably using panko when I made this last night. I'm kind of torn on panko. The breading is thicker, yes, and crispier, but the panko itself doesn't have the best flavor. That's kind of a problem since whatever breading I use tends to come off the chicken in sheets when soaked with sauce for serving - which isn't a problem - but you sometimes end up eating a bit of breading by itself and in a direct comparison between panko and standard Progresso Italian, Progresso Italian wins in flavor. I've also noticed, when using panko, that I get a better breading if I double the steps - i.e. flour, egg, panko, egg, panko. Hitting the egg and panko a second time gives you a much thicker breading. If only the panko itself actually had a good flavor. I've tried three brands - Progresso, whatever brand comes in the big container from Costco (can't remember what it's called) and some obscure Asian brand that I got at the Asian market. I had the same problem with all three. Progresso was, if I recall correctly, the best, but it was also much more expensive. So overall, I'm not completely sold on panko. Matt prefers Progresso Italian anyway, so I'll probably stick with that going forward.

For the chicken, split chicken breasts cook more evenly. In an attempt to give the chicken itself more flavor, I brined the four chicken breasts overnight in a mixture of 1/4 cup kosher salt to 4 cups water. (I also threw in a couple bay leaves because, well, why not?) The chicken sat in the saltwater for a good 24 hours before I set out to make dinner, and it did make a difference. The chicken did not taste salty, but just had more depth of flavor. I will continue to do this step in future. The times listed on Ina's recipe for cooking are way off from what I end up doing - I find the chicken usually needs 4-5 minutes per side, and not 2, in order to brown nicely. I've also noticed that the chicken needs longer than 10 minutes in the oven to be cooked thoroughly. As far as what kind of fat to saute in, her recipe calls for olive oil, but I have also successfully used olive oil/butter, butter alone, clarified butter, and bacon fat. The latter two are my favorites.

Given the prevalence of butter in the sauce, I noticed a BIG difference the one time I made this using fresh butter from the local Amish market. It was much, much richer and creamier than using Land'o'Lakes, which is what I usually have around. If I have the good stuff in the house, I use it, but don't sweat it if I don't.

Finally, I've found that the kind of white wine used in the sauce does make a difference. My personal preference for a cooking white wine (for any savory application, not just this recipe) is Sauvignon Blanc. It's not overly sweet, and has a nice tanginess that I find very pleasing. Last night the only white I had in the house was a Pinot Grigio, and I didn't like the sweetness of that grape with the capers and lemon.

Picky about sauce ingredients or no, I usually make just a little extra of it. For example, I usually double the recipe for the chicken and then do three or four recipes of the sauce, depending on what I'm serving the chicken with and whether any of the sides would want some sauce (like pasta).

However I vary it - this is still one of Matt's favorites.

Plum Torte

I first had plum torte in a German restaurant in Norfolk, Virginia, about a two years ago.  I couldn't believe how delicious it was and I set out on a quest to find a recipe for it.  My quest had lapsed after I made it from a recipe last summer and didn't care for it.    The crust was made from a kneaded wheat dough which became very tough during baking.  Not sure if the wheat dough is more traditional or not, but I like this new recipe a thousand times better.

Unlike many of the recipes I've been using lately, this one came from a physical cookbook, The New Elegant but Easy Cookbook. However, I did find a link to it online, Original Plum Torte.  It really may be one of the easiest desserts I've ever made.  Literally, the most difficult part is slicing the plums--that's how easy it is.  The recipe recommends simply halving the plums, but I think it looks prettier when they are sliced and arranged.  I used both purple and red plums to give it some depth.  The 10-inch spring form pan I used made it a little thinner than I would have preferred; I'll use a smaller pan next time.

This would be a great dessert for any time of year and any time something needs to be made quickly.  I like it cold, but it would be very nice warm too.  Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

First, let me say that this is not haute cuisine, not at all gourmet fare. This is jock food for watching sports games and drinking beer. And it's not exactly healthy for you. But for the rare occasion when you have a bunch of people watching the Super Bowl, the World Series or doing a live fantasy football draft (**raises hand**) this is perfect.

To cook the chicken, I cut four thawed chicken breasts roughly into strips and boiled them in plain chicken broth for an hour to an hour and a half or so, until they were cooked through and shredded easily with a couple forks. Crock pot cooking the chicken apparently also works, as does using a rotisserie chicken.

There are several varieties of Frank's Red Hot Sauce - I used the simple Original sauce. I also used about a cup more of shredded cheddar than is called for. For dipping, either a sturdy chip or sticks of celery work well. The entire bottle of Frank's Red Hot is offset by the Ranch and cream cheese, and while the end product is definitely spicy, it is not nearly as spicy as I was expecting.

I got the recipe from the Chowhound cooking boards, and the thread with this recipe also contains many ideas for possible variations.

Simple Joys of Cinnamon Buns

I've come to a very important conclusion: There is nothing quite like waking up to a cake stand full of homemade cinnamon buns.  Sure, Pillsbury would look much the same, but the care and love put into making these delicious artery-clogging buns from scratch multiplies the joy exponentially.  I admit I thoroughly enjoy the sensation of my kitchen looking like a professional bakery.  It gives me a great sense of accomplishment and fulfillment to know that I made the effort and now they are there for me or Richard to enjoy at leisure.  

I hope someone knows what I mean by all this blabbering.

Going into this project, I did wonder if the extra effort would yield a result sufficiently superior to Pillsbury's exploding cylinder of dough to make it worth the effort.  It proved unquestionably superior.

The recipe was straightforward.  I did run into a bit of hitch with the yeast.  Somehow I got it into my head that it called for active dry yeast when it in fact called for instant dry.  Now of course, yeast will work as yeast no matter what, one must simply prepare it differently.  Unfortunately, there isn't much liquid in this recipe to reduce proportionate to the amount of liquid used to proof the yeast, so I resorted to using more flour, which certainly had a mild impact on flavor.

Other than that slight and completely self-inflicted problem, I had no difficulty with the recipe.  I did all the kneading by hand since I don't own a swoopty-doo stand mixer, but I like kneading dough so it didn't bother me.

The only thing I might do differently next time is invest in a quality cinnamon.  I have my handy dandy McCormick shaker, but a greater depth of cinnamon flavor would have been nice.

Richard genuinely enjoyed them.  I even got the coveted "I'm-not-really-a-big-fan-of-cinnamon-buns-but-these-are-delicious" comment.

Spicy Cucumber Salad - Fuchsia Dunlop

This recipe comes from Fuchsia's Sichuan cookbook, and is both absurdly simple and utterly delicious.

First, peel a few cucumbers and then cut them into quarters lengthwise, and remove the seeds and pulp. Then cut the pieces into batons - pieces that are roughly 1/4 inch by 1/4 inch by 2-3 inches long. Sprinkle the pieces with salt and set aside for at least an hour to draw out as much of the water as possible. Then squeeze the pieces in a few paper towels to again draw out as much water as possible.

Heat the wok! Add a few tablespoons of peanut oil, and just a little bit of Sichuan peppercorns, and 4-5 dried red chilis, snipped in half with seeds removed. When the oil is fragrant with the spices (20-30 seconds - stir and watch so the spices don't burn), add the cucumber and stir until coated with the hot oil, just about 10-15 seconds. Remove from the heat. Add about a tablespoon of sesame oil, and stir thoroughly before transferring to a serving platter. Dish gets better as it sits and cools off, and can be made entirely in advance and served cold.

This is fantastic, so easy and it disappeared quickly!

Gong Bao Chicken with Peanuts - Fuchsia Dunlop

I discovered Fuchsia Dunlop through her utterly fascinating memoir, Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, and was inspired by her to try cooking Chinese food at home. She has published two cookbooks, one on Sichuan cookery and one on Hunan, and both are widely considered to be among the best (if not the best) Chinese cookbooks written in English.

As the bulk of her memoir focuses on her time in Sichuan, that collection of recipes is the one I started with (although my library fortunately has both!).

Her recipe for Gong Bao Chicken (often called Kung Pao here in the states) is listed on her website as well as in her memoir, and is the first Chinese food recipe I attempted to make at home. I took a copy of the recipe to my local Asian market, and after a good 15 minutes in the vinegar and wine aisle, was able to locate most of the tricky ingredients. For example, there are a couple varieties of rice wine. Sweet rice wine, also called mirin, is a staple in Japanese cooking and is quite distinct from dry rice wine, which is what this recipe required. (Incidentally, I have both dry rice wine and mirin in my pantry! Mirin is essential for udon soup and tempura dipping sauces, which I'll write up the next time I make those.) The ingredients list calls for Shaoxing wine, but not being able to decipher all the Chinese characters on items at the Asian market, I found something that said, in English, "dry rice wine" and felt that would work (and it has).

Chinkiang vinegar was easy to locate. Sesame oil I can find at my standard grocery store, and it was simple to pick out light and dark soy. My local grocery doesn't carry dried red chilies, but they were no problem at the Asian market. The trickiest ingredient to find was the Sichuan peppercorns, which are not actually a peppercorn as we understand them but are actually the small dried budding fruit of a particular bush. While this spice was not available at either my local grocery or at the Asian market, I found it at Penzeys, a spice specialty store. (I didn't have the peppercorns the first couple of times I made this dish, and it came out fine, although lacking that distinctive flavor.)

Also - the recipe calls for groundnut oil for the wok. All this means is peanut oil, called "groundnut oil" in the UK, which is where Dunlop is from.

Part of the magic of this dish lies in the combination of garlic, ginger, and scallions. All of those must be fresh. Also - make sure you use roasted peanuts. I accidentally got raw peanuts from the Asian market once - yuck!

I've made this recipe 5 or 6 (or 7?) times now, and have learned a lot about wok cooking during that time. The prevalence of wok cooking in China was driven by the relative shortage of cooking fuel, and you can both cook food very quickly and conserve precious fuel if you cut it into small pieces and then cook it over a very high flame. The shape of the wok, with its sloped sides, contributes to the even distribution of that precious heat. Combined with the fact that chopsticks are used for pretty much everything, most authentic Chinese dishes are in bite-sized pieces when brought to the table. No knives, here!

Additionally, since wok cooking is all about exposing your ingredients to high flame and cooking them very quickly, how you cut your ingredients is essential. The food processor can't be used here, as it is imperative that your ingredients be in cubes or slices (or whatever) as the recipe indicates. The shape of the cut food determines how it reacts to the fast heat in the wok, so this step can't be glossed over. (Dunlop spends a whole chapter in her memoir on the importance of cutting - just the cutting! - in Chinese cuisine.) The enormous upside, besides the rather zen exercise of careful slicing that I must admit I quite enjoy, is that the recipe can be almost entirely prepped in advance, and then everything pulled out of the fridge and thrown into the hot wok right before mealtime.

With this particular recipe, I have tried several things. I made it in one batch, double batches, triple batches, with extra sauce, without the Sichuan peppercorns, and with a reduced number of red chilis.

The sauce of this dish is fantastic, but increasing that part in ratio by even a little bit throws off the delicate balance of flavors, and the end result is way too sweet. I was astonished at how much I liked the sauce when there was just a little of it, but could hardly stand the sweetness when there was more. The Sichuan peppercorns add a distinctive kind of spice that is completely irreplaceable. The red chilis, when used in the amount listed in the ingredients list, bring too much heat for our house to enjoy. I tone down the chilis from 10 to 7 and find that suits our taste buds (although we love spicy food, so it might be worth it to tone down more if you aren't into lots of heat). The primary purpose of both the peppercorns and the chilis is not to be eaten themselves, but to flavor the hot oil which then permeates all of the ingredients. The flavor of both is carried to everything, but you don't actually eat the peppercorns and chilis (unless you want to, of course! Although those chilis - eat at your own risk!).

However, the biggest lesson I learned with this recipe was about the size of cooking portions. The first time I made the dish, Matt and I were struck at how light and fresh the taste was - so far and above take-out Chinese food that it'd be hard to go back. I lost that freshness and lightness on subsequent batches, and only last night figured out why. The first time I tried the recipe, I made a single batch since I was unsure how it would turn out. After the roaring success of that first time, I doubled and tripled the recipe the next few times. However, increasing the amount of food in the wok completely changed how the food reacted to the heat. Some water comes out of the ingredients when you cook them, and when you have a single recipe in the wok, that little bit of liquid evaporates quickly. With two or three times the ingredients in there, the greater amount of liquid doesn't evaporate, and you get almost a boiled effect instead of the hot quick saute you're after. The effect is completely different! Last night I made a double batch of the recipe but cooked one batch at a time in the wok. It was the best version of this dish I've made yet.