Home Friendly General Tso's (Air Fried or Deep Fried)

TIMESTAMPS

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:02 Why General Tso's is tough for a weeknight
• 3:12 Breading Chicken
• 4:38 Option 1: Air Fried
• 6:02 How to make frozen Chicken Nuggets
• 7:59 Option 2: Air Fry from frozen
• 8:26 Option 3: Deep Fry from frozen.
• 9:10 General Tso's Sauce
• 12:12 Taste Test Comparison

INGREDIENTS

-Chicken Marinade-

• 3 chicken breasts, cubed
• 1 egg
• 15 g (1 tbsp) soy sauce
• 15 g (1 tbsp) black vinegar

-Chicken Breading-

• 200 g (~1.5 cups) flour
• 200 g (~1.5 cups) cornstarch
• 10 g (~1.5 tsp) salt
• 3 g (~0.5 tsp) baking powder

-General Tso’s Sauce-

• 100 g (1/3 cup) chicken stock (or Water)
• 30 g (2 tbsp) soy sauce
• 20 g (1 tbsp + 1 tsp) black vinegar
• 40 g (3 tbsp) brown sugar
• 10 g (2 tsp) chili garlic paste
• 5 g (1 tsp) sesame oil
• 15 g (1 tbsp) hoisin sauce

-Aromatic Base-

• 10 g (2 tsp) neutral oil
• 1-inch knob of ginger, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 Arbol or dried Chinese red chiles, cut in half
• Cornstarch Slurry (as needed)
• 10 g (2 tsp) water
• 5 g (1 tsp) cornstarch

-For Serving-

• Steamed white rice
• Scallions for garnish

DIRECTIONS

-Sauce-

1. To start set a pan over medium heat and add all aromatic base components, and let that toast for about 90 seconds which is going to release and infuse those flavors into the oil.
2. Then pour in all remaining sauce ingredients and let that come to a boil for about 3 minutes during which the sauce will reduce a bit.
3. To thicken the sauce, add about half the cornstarch slurry (mix water and cornstarch together first) and the sauce should start to thicken as it simmers. If you want it thinner leave it as is, or add the remaining half to make it a thicker base.
4. Once thickened to your liking, add it to a glass jar and this is ready to store in the fridge and use to sauce up your nuggets.

-Breading Chicken Nuggets-

1. Combine cubed chicken with the remaining marinade ingredients.
2. Meanwhile, let's prepare the breading by combining all breading components in a bowl.
3. Then to bread the chicken, just pour the entire bowl of marinated chicken and any excess liquid right into the dry ingredients.
4. Mix the chicken and ensure every piece gets a coating of the breading, and what you’ll notice is that the extra liquid creates scraggly pieces in the crust which gives us a ton of additional texture when frying.

Now choose one of the following three methods to fry your nuggets for the dish

Option 1: Air Fried Only

1. To air fry, give them an initial spray of oil all over. Then toss them into the air fryer of choice for 12 minutes at 400 degrees F.
2. To promote even cooking and browning, at 5 minutes I take the basket out and give them another spritz before shaking them up and sliding them back in.
3. Pull at 12 minutes or when crisp & golden brown.

Option 2: Double Fried

1. Set a wok or pot over medium-high heat and pour in about 2 inches of peanut oil and bring it to 325 F (163 C).
2. Once the oil is hot, working in batches, just drop in the nuggets. And with the double fry technique, the first fry is really about just cooking the chicken through and starting to get some color.
3. Repeat that process until all the chicken nuggets have been fried once.
4. At this point, you can freeze the nuggets for air frying (see option 3) or if you are making finishing the dish in the future.
5. You can let the nuggets rest for 10 mins and double-fry them right away as well.

-To double fry-

1. Bring your frying oil setup to to 375F (190 C). Grab the rested nuggets or if frozen, you can go straight from the freezer and then just drop in about 10 of them.
2. In about 2.5 minutes they should go deeper brown in color and completely crisp up.

Option 3: Deep Fried, Frozen, & Air Fried

1. If you froze a batch of deep-fried nuggets, you can just air fry them to warm them up and finish crisping them:
2. Take the nuggets out of the freezer and add a serving directly to the air fryer basket. Optionally spritz with oil.
3. Air fry for just 6 minutes at 400 degrees F or until warmed through and crisp.

Sauce & Serve

1. As the chicken finishes cooking, warm up a portion of the sauce. Use enough to coat the chicken by tossing the two together in a bowl. Serve over rice and garnish with scallions.