- I'm Jeffrey Pang. - I'm Kevin Pang. Today, we're making
the most famous Chinese takeout dish ever,
General Tso's chicken. (upbeat music) - If you've ever
ordered Chinese takeout, I almost guarantee you've
had General Tso's chicken. - Is crispy boneless
chicken, savory sauce. Perfect with rice. - Yeah and here's the thing
about General Tso's chicken, if you get it at a restaurant,
it's absolutely delicious. But if you order it takeout,
if you could get it delivered, it's just never as satisfying. It's not as crisp, right? - Yeah, but why not
we make it at home? It's easy. - Yeah, it's
really, really easy. - Yeah, it's easy. - We're gonna start
up with the sauce which will also be our
marinade for the chicken. We're gonna start off with a
quarter cup of white vinegar which we'll add
to this bowl here. To that, we're gonna add three
tablespoons of soy sauce. We have three
tablespoons of sugar, and to that we're gonna add
two tablespoons of corn starch. We love adding corn starch because it helps
the sauce get very silky.
- Silky, yes. - Yeah. We also have a cup
and a half of water, and finally we have half
a cup of hoisin sauce. Now we Cantonese, we use
hoisin sauce a lot, right? - Yes, we use a lot of hoisin
sauce and in Cantonese, we call it hNixi jiàng, it's savory and sweet. And make with
fermented soy bean. - Yeah, it's almost
like barbecue sauce. - Yes. - Like Chinese barbecue sauce. All right, so whisk this
together, just like that. And this is looking
pretty good here. Now the star of the show
is of course, chicken. This recipe calls
for chicken breast but we're using chicken thighs which have been cut
into one inch pieces. It's gonna take a
little bit longer to fry but we'll cross that
bridge when we get there. All right, this is
in a zipper top bag. We're gonna add six
tablespoons of the marinade. (cheerful music) And six. Great. Can push all the air out
and just sort of make sure the marinade's
covering everything. How long does this
need to marinate for? - It's about 30 minutes. - Okay, great. Before I put this in the fridge, we're gonna measure out
two cups of the sauce. We're gonna be cooking
down this sauce. It's gonna become nice
and glossy and silky and then there's gonna
be some sauce remaining. We're gonna add
that to the batter. But first, two cups
into this measuring cup. About two cups. We're gonna have a little
bit of sauce remaining. We're gonna cook this
now in just a second but I'm gonna put this in the
fridge and let it hang out. Now it's time to
cook down the sauce so what are we gonna use? - We have the wok. I turn it onto medium heat. - To medium heat - To medium heat. - Okay. This looks good. Now I'm gonna add a
tablespoon of vegetable oil. Okay, and we're gonna wait
until this starts to shimmer. And as always, we're
going to use our favorite Chinese aromatics. - It's garlic. - Garlic. - Yeah. - That's fore cloves
of garlic, and? - Ginger. - We have two tablespoons
of freshly graded ginger and of course? - Chili flakes. - Red chili flakes. Great. So we'll just let that hang out. - You don't wanna burn it, just
only take about one minute. - Okay. Great. Once you start smelling
it, that is when you know you'll be able to add the sauce. - Yeah, you can see the
garlic is dancing, right? - Yeah, it's popping
like popcorn, right? This looks good. And now we're going to add
our two cups of marinade. - [Jeffrey] Okay. - And you're gonna wanna
whisk this constantly and because there's corn
starch in the sauce, you're gonna start to see
it get a little bit thick and also glossy. And this will take how long? - About two minutes. - Two minutes or so. (upbeat music) - See, it's getting
nice and dark brown. - Once that is done,
we're gonna set that aside and then we'll get to
battering the chicken. (upbeat interlude) It's been half an hour. We've taken the chicken
out of the fridge. We've patted it with
paper towels to get rid of some of the excess marinade. and now it's time to
batter the chicken. So in front of us, we
have two shallow bowls. The first one,
that's the wet bowl, we've got three egg whites which we're gonna
whisk in a minute. And then the second bowl
we're gonna add first, cup and a half of corn starch. (upbeat music) We have half a cup
of all-purpose flour. (upbeat music) We have the remaining marinade which we're gonna add to the
flour and the corn starch. (upbeat music) And last but not least, we have our secret ingredient. This is baking soda. Why do we wanna use baking soda? - Because we are adding
wet sauce, baking soda help browning and keep
the chicken crispy. - Perfect. Okay. So we're gonna add it to there. You only need about
a half a teaspoon. So why don't you sort of
like stir everything together and I will whisk the egg whites and you just want it
to be slightly foamy. That's what we're looking for. - [Jeffrey] It's okay that
you get little bit lumpy. - Yeah, it doesn't need
to be too well combined. Just you want it to
look like course meal, a little bit craggy. That's good. All right. This egg white
looks good as well. We're gonna take now half
of the chicken thighs and we're gonna put that
into the egg whites. And again, we want to
pat it, not exactly dry but just to get rid of some
of that excess marinade here. Okay. And we're gonna combine
that just like this. And now we'll add it to
our semi-dry corn starch and flour mixture. Okay. So now we wanna use our hands and we want to press the batter. Do you wanna do this
at the same time? - Yes. - Okay, it's like a father
and son craft activity, right? (Jeffrey laughing) Okay. Use both hands. - [Jeffrey] Okay. - [Kevin] Okay. - Let's get dirty here. I think that's
looking pretty good. Press, press into there. Like you're giving
it a Chinese massage. - You don't have
to press too hard. - Yeah, you just want
the coating to adhere. But be firm, but
you don't have to be like Superman here. Okay, I think we can even go
a little bit quicker, right? Just like that. - Patience. - Patience. All right. I think I've heard that about
10 times this week already, "Be patient, son." So that's the first batch. We're gonna do the same thing with the second batch. (digital music) It's deep fry,
crispy chicken time. My favorite time of the day. We have a Dutch oven, four
cups of vegetable oil. And what's the temperature
we're looking for? - Well, we want 350 degree. - Okay. 350 Fahrenheit. Use a digital
thermometer if you can but you didn't have
thermometer growing up, right? - When the time I grew up, we
don't have that technology. - Yeah. - Okay, my mom's
always used her face to feel the temperature. (chuckling) Of course, you know, I would
like to use the chopstick and you can see the
bubbles on a chopstick and you can see
the oil is moving, so that mean it's
a good temperature. - But we have the
technology now, so please use a thermometer. All right, as always, we're
gonna fry these in two batches. Okay, so I'm gonna
be very careful as I place this
into our hot oil. Remember you don't
wanna overcrowd the pan which is why we wanna fry
this in two separate batches because that's gonna bring
the oil temperature down too quickly and you're not
gonna get even, crisp frying. All right. A few more pieces. All right. And one more piece,
that looks good. Okay. All right. - Make sure they're
not stick together. - Yeah, you don't want
them sticking together. - Okay. So after that, you don't
want to stir anymore. - Right. - But you need to turn
it, the chicken pieces, the halfway. - Okay, so halfway
between frying, you want to turn
the chicken pieces? Now if you're following
original recipe with chicken breasts, it's gonna
take three minutes to cook. But if you're using
chicken thighs, like we are that's gonna take
a minute longer. It'll take about
four minutes to cook. I love the smell
of fried chicken. Do you like fried chicken? - Son, you love fried chicken. - Yes, but I love fast
food fried chicken. - Yeah, I think you spend all
your pocket money, you know to buy the chicken. - So while kids play arcade
games or bought books, I went to. - You buy Kentucky
Fried Chicken. - Oh my God. Great. Can you edit that part out? How can I tell
that this is done? - So you can see the
color of the chicken now turn golden brown. - Ah, okay. So with chicken thigh, again, it's gonna take
about four minutes, chicken breast, a little
quicker, three minutes. Do you think this is done? - I told you so many
times, be patient, okay? - Okay. - Be patient. - All right. Okay. - Okay. - Now it's done? - Now it's done. - All right, great. So use a spider skimmer. My favorite tools. - Every time you need
to shake the leak. - Shake, get the excess oil out. - Yeah. - We've got a clean plate
lined with paper towels. Look at that. I can just eat this just
like this without the sauce. So we're done with
the first batch. We're gonna bring the
temperature back up to 350. We'll fry the second batch and then it's General
Tso's chicken time. Chicken's been all fried up. It's crispy. It's golden brown. It's beautiful. You can actually just like eat
these just right now, right? - Hey Kevin, you never change. You always, always try
to steal the chicken. Okay, it's too hot. You eat so early. - Yeah, well, some
things never change. All right. Let's get back to the
General Tso's chicken. The sauce, which has
been hanging out here, we're bringing it
back up to heat. This is medium low. You want it barely simmering. And we can just throw the
whole thing in here, right? - You have all the chicken. - All the chicken. - In the sauce. - All right. So this looks ready and I'm just gonna dump
this right in here. And what do you want to do now? - Just all, all the chicken together. - Just toss everything together? - [Jeffrey] Yeah, yeah. - Okay. - And this does not take long. - No, no, no. Don't take long - Like less than
a minute, right? - Otherwise will get soft. - Yeah, you don't
want it to get soggy. - Yeah, just to make a coating. - Okay, great. - Look at this. This is done. - Okay, great. Actually, I'm gonna
use this plate instead. I think this looks nicer. And I will help you plate this. (upbeat music) And look at that. - [Jeffrey] So
colorful (chuckling). - The freshest, hottest,
and certainly crispiest General Tso's chicken
you'll ever have. - Now you can eat it. (playful music) Hey Kevin, do you know
what is the most famous Chinese food in US? - What is it? - Mongolian beef and
General Tso's chicken. - General Tso's chicken
and Mongolian beef. - Yeah, it's called
(speaking foreign language). - So who is General Tso anyway? - I was told General Tso,
this is invented by a chef from Hunan. He tried to name after
the famous general, Zou Zongtang, General Tso, because General Tso
is also from Hunan. - I see. But we should try this. - [Jeffrey] Oh, okay. - [Kevin] Okay. - Um. - Um. - Man, it's still pretty crispy, crunchy, get those craggy
bits, but the sauce, not too sweet. - No. - Not too salty. - No. - Really balanced. - [Jeffrey] It's really savory. - Yeah.
The sauce. - [Kevin] It's really
well balanced here. - Yeah. Did you know this is
your mom's favorite dish? - General Tso's chicken
is her favorite dish? - Yes, yes. - All right.
Always. - Yeah, well, she's
sitting right over there. Do wanna try this? Come on camera? No? All right. Okay, well, she's shy. More for us anyway. So what's your
favorite chicken dish? Let us know in the
comments below. And for this recipe, go to
Americastestkitchen.com/pang or scan this QR code. - Thanks for watching. Please like this
video and subscribe. (upbeat music)
