I tried making General Tso’s Chicken last night using a sauce I had picked up at Le Gourmet Chef at the Mall of America. We had sampled it there with pretzels and decided to pick up a bottle to try it at home! This is a super simple recipe that can easily be jazzed up in a variety of ways.
This is how I tried preparing it:
I began with gathering the sauces and things of the like I thought I’d use. Here, I have sesame oil, General Tso’s sauce, garlic and sugar. I also took out an onion and green bell pepper.
I cut the boneless-skinless chicken breast into thin slices and scored* each piece. I then added some of the garlic** to take away the strong “chicken taste” my husband doesn’t like. ^.~
I also added two spoonfuls of sugar for sweetness. Doing this recipe again, I would either add more sugar or put in a little bit of honey for more flavor.
I then started adding the sauces.
• For the General Tso’s sauce, I added enough so that after mixing it, there was still excess in the bottom.
• For the sesame oil (shown here), I added enough to “cover” the chicken, basically enough where I felt each piece was coated with enough for cooking.
• The Gen. Tso’s sauce has soy sauce in it, but after I mixed the sauce in there, it looked too pale to have had a relatively decent amount. Thus, I added about a spoonful or a little less of soy sauce. Repeating this recipe, I would probably add a little more than that.
Here it is all mixed up.
Then, it was time for the onions and bell peppers. You can really add any vegetable you want, but for our purposes, we almost always use onions. I would have loved to use a red or yellow pepper for added sweetness, but all I had at home was a green pepper, so I went with that. 
I mixed all of that together and let it sit in the fridge for about a half hour.***
Then, it was cooking time! I always use a nonsitck pan, and the chicken already has sesame oil on it, so you do not need to put anything in the pan while it is heating. Yes, people tell you you should, but I say rubbish to them. On our electric stove, I set it to “5,” which is about the midpoint for heat.
And voila! General Tso’s chicken!
(Yes, we eat out of the pan to keep it hot when it’s just the two of us. XD)
*On Scoring: I think scoring is critical when preparing meat, personally. It helps it to cook faster since the heat can penetrate inside more quickly, and it also helps to make the meat more tender and delicious. My two cents, anyway. ^.~
**On Garlic: When preparing meat in our house, garlic is a must-have. I am very, very sensitive to the kind of garlic used a lot in Italian cooking and whatnot, but this garlic does not have the same kind of impact. It really helps to take away the bland flavor of the meat you are cooking to help emphasize the ingredients you have mixed in. My husband can always tell when I’ve forgotten to put it in.
***Letting it Sit: This is critical for maximizing the amount of flavor retained while cooking. For chicken, I like to do at least a half-hour, and that usually does the trick. Longer is often better, but not always critical. For my beef recipes, I prefer to let those sit overnight to really soak it all in. Every time I have cooked in a hurry and have not allowed it to sit, the flavor has been really weak.
What I would do differently: I would add something for a little added sweetness, such as a little honey or a little more sugar. I would also add a little more soy sauce because it just didn’t have enough, in my opinion. I might mix in a tiny bit of more spice for a little more kick, too.
Overall, though, it was a good dish that I think everyone can enjoy. I’m used to eating foods with really strong flavor profiles, and this was a little weaker. I think that makes it more universally likeable than some of the other foods we eat. ^^;;
