Tony picked our second dish for cultural cooking night; fried rice and general Tao chicken. We are big Chinese food lovers, especially fried rice. It was a rainy Friday night, we had both been gone a lot throughout the week, so it was a perfect way to spend time together. We also popped a bottle of wine we had purchased at a winery in Houston to put the cherry on top of a great night.
Okay, since we were cookin’ up two different dishes, we both somewhat manned one. I took the chicken and Tony took the rice. Both full recipes can be found on this website.
We started with the chicken:
General Tao Chicken:
Gather the following ingredients:
- 2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – cut into bite-size pieces
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 4 teaspoons sesame oil
- 2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger root
- 1/2 cup chopped green onion
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1/4 cup oyster sauce
- 1/4 cup ketchup
There were a few items I sent Tony on the hunt for while he was driving home from work. I will say, oyster sauce was a tough one, but we eventually found it at a Super Target, as well as sesame oil. Sesame oil was also found at Target 🙂
The process of cooking the chicken, however, was a bit lengthy. The recipe had only four steps, but the steps definitely had some work!
1. Coat the chicken pieces with 1/4 cup of cornstarch; set aside.
I am absolutely obsessed with this picture! This gives you the perfect look into our home – Ace is a part of EVERYTHING!2. Beat the eggs, salt, and pepper in a mixing bowl until smooth. Stir in the flour and baking powder until no large lumps remain. Mix in the chicken until evenly coated.
This doesn’t look that appetizing, but it’s key for the chicken’s flavor!
3. Heat the vegetable oil in a wok or large skillet over high heat. Drop in the chicken pieces; cook until golden brown and no longer pink on the inside, about 12 minutes. Set the chicken aside; keep warm.
This step was easy, however, what I have realized about cooking with oil, is that it splatters! I think I need some sort of cover for my skillets. My mom has a see through, metal top that covers most pans; I’m thinking I may need to invest in something similar. Tony and I both got little burns from the sizzling oils. But, it was worth it! Onward…
4. Reduce the heat to medium-high and stir in the sesame oil, ginger, and green onion.Cook and stir until the onion is limp and the ginger begins to brown, about 1 minute.
4. Step four continued… Pour in the water, vinegar, and sugar; bring to a boil. Dissolve the cornstarch in the soy sauce and add to the simmering vinegar along with the oyster sauce and ketchup. Stir until the sauce has thickened and is no longer cloudy.
The pan on the right side is the General Tao sauce cooking with the previous ingredients added. Sorry, I don’t have a play by play of adding each ingredient, but it basically mixing in alllll together and letting it thicken is step four’s main idea. During this step, I had a royal mix up. I added about five times the amount of soy sauce the recipe called for. The final product tasted great, but it was a tad different than the online recipe. (The pan on the left is showcasing the cooking onions for the fried rice. The fried rice steps will also include where in our general tao chicken cooking proper steps should be started).
4. Step four continued… yet again… Stir in the chicken and simmer until hot.
It looks tasty!!!
Now, onto the other recipe. The fried rice recipe we followed included chicken. Since we decided to go a different direction with our chicken flavoring, we followed every step except the steps concerning chicken. (Duh).
(Chicken) Fried Rice
For starters, the full recipe we followed can be found here.
- Gather the following ingredients:
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 cups cooked white rice, cold
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
This recipe is extremely easy to follow. Below are easy to follow steps – I don’t have many pictures for this one because I was busy manning the chicken! I will also include when in the General Tao Recipe we started specific steps for the fried rice.
Directions:
- In a small bowl, beat egg with water. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium low heat. Add egg and leave flat for 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from skillet and cut into shreds.
- Heat oil in same skillet; add onion and saute until soft. Then add rice, soy sauce, & pepper. Stir fry together for about 5 minutes, then stir in egg. Serve hot.
Pretty easy!
I think both of us were drooling by the time dinner was served. The smells in our chicken were heavenly!
Dinner is served. Cheers!
ENJOY!