Adventures in cooking - General Gau's chicken
Yesterday a friend suggested a chinese food run, but that dissolved and didn't occur. But I had my tastebuds all prepared for General Gau's chicken, so I figured I'd give it a whirl!
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/food3.htm
I think this is going to take a bit of time to get down right. While it *looks* slightly like the right thing, what I made is *not* what I really wanted.
1. I ran out of peanut oil. So I used half peanut, half canola.
2. The corn starch topping "fell off" when I deep fried the chicken. Oh, there's some still clinging to the chicken chunks, but not nearly as much as I recall from restaurants. I don't know if the batter was too thin, or if the temp. of the oil wasn't high enough. I've been shy about using a really hot wok ever since I had that fire that scared the heck out of me (no damage, just had to clean cabinets and live with a "fire smell" in the house for 2 days while I aired it out)
3. The chicken's topping isn't the "crispy" texture I wanted. Likely due to the lack of topping along with the wrong oil temperature.
4. I used the wrong peppers. I had green serranos, not the red dried chinese peppers.
5. The sauce isn't quite right. I used a heavier soy sauce, maybe that was it. Or perhaps I didn't let the sugar caramelize properly (likely again due to my "not likely as hot a wok" thing).
6. I forgot the broccoli til it was done, and just didn't want to deal cuz I was hungry.
But the rice came out great! I used the last of that bag of rice. And it is quite yummy, just not General Gau's chicken.
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/food3.htm
I think this is going to take a bit of time to get down right. While it *looks* slightly like the right thing, what I made is *not* what I really wanted.
1. I ran out of peanut oil. So I used half peanut, half canola.
2. The corn starch topping "fell off" when I deep fried the chicken. Oh, there's some still clinging to the chicken chunks, but not nearly as much as I recall from restaurants. I don't know if the batter was too thin, or if the temp. of the oil wasn't high enough. I've been shy about using a really hot wok ever since I had that fire that scared the heck out of me (no damage, just had to clean cabinets and live with a "fire smell" in the house for 2 days while I aired it out)
3. The chicken's topping isn't the "crispy" texture I wanted. Likely due to the lack of topping along with the wrong oil temperature.
4. I used the wrong peppers. I had green serranos, not the red dried chinese peppers.
5. The sauce isn't quite right. I used a heavier soy sauce, maybe that was it. Or perhaps I didn't let the sugar caramelize properly (likely again due to my "not likely as hot a wok" thing).
6. I forgot the broccoli til it was done, and just didn't want to deal cuz I was hungry.
But the rice came out great! I used the last of that bag of rice. And it is quite yummy, just not General Gau's chicken.