Chinese Lemon Chicken

Source: The Food of China by Deh-Ta Hsiung and Nina Simonds

I've been on a mission for the past year, to find the best General Tso's Chicken or Orange Chicken in Austin. For the most part, I'm really a healthy eater. I try to have fresh vegetables with most meals. I've switched from cooking long-grain white rice and jasmine rice to the more nutritious brown or wild rice.

But every now and then, I just crave some cheap, shitty Americanized Chinese food. And few dishes epitomize cheap, shitty Americanized Chinese food like General Tso's Chicken. There's something about that unique breaded texture of the meat, the thickness of the sauce, and that combination of sweet and savory flavors that has me hooked.

Or maybe it's my body saying "you need to eat more greasy stuff and restore balance." I don't know.

At any rate, I've been trying random Chinese restaurants around Austin and seeing how each one's General Tso's Chicken (a.k.a. Orange Chicken) stacks up against the others'. This is all excluding Panda Express, of course. Not to get all Hipster about Chinese food, but they're too mainstream, they lack soul.

Not too long ago, I realized that cooking it on my own isn't very complex. All it takes is a nonstick pan and oil that's hot enough. Plus I already had a semi-authentic Lemon Chicken recipe to work with from my big Chinese cookbook. The final result wasn't quite restaurant quality, but it was surprisingly satisfying.

Ingredients for chicken:

- 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces

- 1 Tbsp light soy sauce

- 1 Tbsp Shaoxing rice wine

- 1 scallion, chopped finely

- 1 clove of garlic, minced

- 1 Tbsp ginger, minced

- 1 egg, lightly beaten

- 1/2 cup corn starch, or more

- Enough cooking oil for frying

Ingredients for sauce:

- 2 Tbsp juice from a lemon or orange

- 2 tsp sugar

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil (I used chili sesame oil)

- 3 Tbsp chicken broth

- 1/2 tsp corn starch

Procedure:

1. In a large bowl, combine the soy sauce, Shaoxing, chopped scallion, garlic, and ginger. Add the pieces of chicken and toss them to coat it all in the marinade. Cover the bowl, and let the chicken marinate in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

2. When the chicken is done marinating, coat all the chicken with the beaten egg. Coat the chicken with the corn starch, shaking off any excess. I poured the dry corn starch into a sealable plastic bag, added the chicken, and shook it all until everything was coated.

3. Pour the frying oil into a wok or nonstick frying pan, and heat it to medium-high. When it's hot enough, a drop of the egg and corn starch should fry golden-brown within 10 seconds. Add a about 1/2 of the chicken, one piece at a time, and fry them while stirring constantly until they are golden-brown (~4 minutes). Remove the cooked chicken with tongs or a wire-sieve, and repeat with the remaining chicken. I lay out the cooked chicken on paper towels to absorb excess oil.

4. When all the chicken is done cooking, drain out the oil and carefully wipe the frying pan dry. Reduce the heat to medium and let the pan cool a little bit. Mix all the sauce ingredients very well, and add the mixture to the pan. Let it cook while constantly stirring until it's thickened. Return the chicken to the pan, and lightly toss it in the sauce.

Oh Snap [Vol 4]: Sambal

I suppose I have a thing for chili pastes. I've already done one of these posts for harissa. They're so versatile, as condiments, sauce components, or ingredients for a spicy marinade.

I know of sambal as the main flavoring in lots of Indonesian and Malaysian dishes, especially Sambal Udang (chili prawns). And Malaysian has to be my favorite cuisine, so when I was in the Asian market and spotted an assortment of sambals, I thought "why the hell not try it."

Out of the many varieties of sambal, I randomly chose sambal oelek, whose ingredients include: red chili, tomato, garlic, galangal, lemongrass, and tamarind. So, yes, sambal is quite pungent by itself. How would I use it?

I didn't look up any recipes, so I thought of the simplest way to feature the sambal. Whole Foods had a sale on fillets of barramundi, a flaky white fish comparable to red snapper or grouper. The end result was a quick and easy dinner with a good kick of spice, topped with a cool mango salsa.

Ingredients:

- 1 lb barramundi fillet, skin on and bones removed, and cut into 4 portions

- 1 tsp sambal oelek

- salt & black pepper to taste

- 1 Tbsp vegetable or peanut oil plus some sesame oil for taste

- 1 mango, peeled, seeded, and diced

- 1 medium-sized shallot, finely diced

- a handful of cilantro leaves, chopped

- 1 Tbsp lime juice

Procedure:

1. Season both sides of each portion of fish with salt and pepper, and spread 1/4 tsp of sambal on the flesh side. Let them sit for 20-30 minutes.

2. Heat up the cooking oil and a splash of sesame oil in a non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Doing 2 portions at a time (so you don't cool down the pan too much), fry the fillet portions, skin side first for 4-5 minutes or until the skin is browned. Flip it to the flesh side, and cook until it's just become opaque white. When they're done, set them aside.

3. The salsa is easy. Dice the mango, dice the shallots, chop the cilantro, and mix it all with the lime juice. If you let it sit in the fridge for an hour, it only gets better.

Pasta in Garlic Oil

I guess I haven't updated this thing for a bit. It's partly because I haven't been doing many new recipes of note for a while (not successfully, anyway). But I've developed a couple of good dishes in the past couple of weeks that are in queue for posting. In the meantime, here's a simple side dish.

Sometimes I really don't feel like spending any more than 30 to 45 minutes making dinner. But you don't see me cranking out some nasty Rachel Ray recipe. No.

God, no.

I prefer to get some quick-cooking fish, prepared simply, with some fresh vegetables and another easy item on the side. Most of the time, I'll make rice with my meal; but to mix it up, pasta with a basil- or garlic-flavored olive oil. The most important things to making the flavored oil are:

1. Use GOOD extra virgin olive oil. It doesn't have to be a $50 bottle, or anything that fancy. But just don't use your regular old Local Supermarket Brand oil, claiming to be straight from Tuscany, but actually being the dregs of the process from some less-than-stellar oil producer. Quality is essential.

2. Don't overheat your pan! Olive oil has a low smoke-point; so if you get your pan too hot, the oil will start to vaporize and ruin the flavor. Also, burning garlic makes any dish have a nasty, bitter, charred taste. Keep the heat low, or medium-low, just enough to barely sizzle the garlic in the oil and release the flavor.

So Simple!