Happy New Year! I'm sure most of you celebrated Valentine's Day on Sunday, but what about the Chinese New Year?  Well I didn't either, but I did on Saturday. 

Recently, Chinese food has been disappointing me.  I don't have a place that I think has the best.  I have tried many, many places and they are are just OK, and a couple places are just bad.  My favorite thing to get is the General (General Tso for all you non-Chinese food geeks), and I usually get it whenever I try a new place so I can compare them to each other.  The key parts that make a great General great are the sauce and the crispiness.  The sauce should be a bit sweet AND spicy and the chicken should be crispy, not soggy.

So for this Chinese New Year I decided to venture in the General.  If I can't find that restaurant with the best General, maybe I can find that awesome recipe for me to make.  To accompany my General I also made vegetable fried rice.

They both came out really well.  Everyone thought the rice was awesome and I thought the General had a lot of potential.  It wasn't as crunchy as I wanted, mostly because it wasn't deep fried, however it wasn't soggy. That was because it didn't have the mass amount of batter that they usually dunk the chicken in.  I did add extra red pepper flakes to make it spicier, and I would cut down on the brown sugar next time to make it not as sweet.

As a side note, I also made General Tso Tofu for Cassie.  She says it was good, but I didn't try it.  I thought it would be better with bigger pieces to mimic the size of the chicken, but then it didn't get a crispy coating.  She did say it could be spicier but that was because I added the extra red pepper flakes when I was cooking the chicken but forgot to add it to her tofu.

A trick for the fried rice is to use day old rice.  This will dry out the rice so it doesn't get soggy when you add the soy sauce.  I didn't make rice the day before, mostly because i didn't realize.  So what i did was go to the Chinese restaurant and bought a quart of white rice.  It's not cheating, I swear.

On to the recipes.

General Tso Chicken (adapted from Tracy's Culinary Adventures)
Ingredients

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 3 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 3 tbsp ketchup
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp hot pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup water
• 3-4 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 6-8 spring green onions, chopped
• 3 tablespoons fresh ginger, finely chopped or grated

Directions

1. Mix together the first 7 ingredients  and set aside. This is the sauce.
   Dredge the chicken cubes in the cornstarch, shaking off any excess. 
2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil and saute the chicken until browned. Remove the chicken to a plate and tent with foil to keep warm.
3. Wipe pan clean and add sesame oil with green onions and chopped ginger. Fry about 1 minute, until fragrant. Add sauce mixture. Bring to a boil and simmer about 2 minutes, until the sauce thickens a bit. 
4. Add the chicken back to the skillet, toss to coat with sauce and continue cooking until the chicken is cooked through. 

Vegetable Fried Rice (adapted from BlogChef)
Ingredients

• 3 cups white rice (preferably long grain, cooked, and a day or so old)
• 3 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 cup frozen peas and carrots mix (thawed)
• 1 small onion (chopped)
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic (or more)
• 2 eggs (slightly beaten)
• ½ cup soy sauce

Directions

1. In a wok heat sesame oil. Add peas and carrots mix, onions and garlic and stir fry until tender.
2. Lower the heat and add the eggs and stir fry until finely scrambled.
3. Add rice and soy sauce and blend well. Stir fry a few seconds or until heated thoroughly.