| Made With Lau (2024)

FAQs

What is General Tso's batter made of? ›

This General Tso's chicken uses cornstarch batter for a crisp, golden brown coating. Frying the chicken twice makes it extra crispy. A spicy, sweet soy sauce mixture with ginger and garlic adds incredible flavor. Don't scrimp or replace the ingredients — you might be disappointed.

This is the one cooking pan Daddy Lau uses most: a round-bottom carbon steel wok. Learn more all about it and other essential cookware in our new course, the Canto Cooking Club 🤩⁠ Visit club.madewithlau.com to sign up now! ⁠

The Chinese broccoli needs to cook as fast as possible, so that the nutrients and color don't have as much opportunity to leach out into the water. It's best to start with as much boiling water as you can. Restaurants serve amazingly green and crunchy Chinese broccoli because they use huge amounts of boiling water.

How to Make General Tso's Sauce: The sauce for General Tso's chicken is so simple to make with pantry staple ingredients: rice vinegar, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, water, sugar, and some corn starch to thicken the sauce. Simply add the ingredients to a bowl and stir to combine.

Make batter: Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Drizzle in sesame oil. Gradually add water, whisking constantly until smooth; batter should be the consistency of cream. Let sit for at least 30 minutes.

Cornstarch and high heat mean super-crispy chicken every time. Before cooking, toss the chicken in cornstarch until completely coated. When the cornstarch hits the hot oil, something magic happens and your chicken with gorgeously golden, crispy edges.

Get a carbon steel wok. Just say no to stainless steel, heavy-gauge cast iron, and nonstick. These other materials aren't ideal for proper stir-frying technique. Stainless steel woks are often heavy, food tends to stick to them, and they don't take on a patina like carbon steel does.

Stir-frying is the heart of healthy wok cooking. The wok's excellent heat distribution ensures that your ingredients cook quickly and evenly. With minimal oil and a focus on fresh, nutrient-rich vegetables, you can create delicious, low-calorie dishes that are as good for your body as they are for your taste buds.

Beer batter—made by combining beer (usually a lighter style such as a lager), egg, and flour—is often used to coat fish, onion rings, and other types of pub-style fare before deep-frying.

How to make breaded General Tso's chicken? ›

This dish starts with cubes of chicken you season with salt and pepper and then batter with flour, cornstarch and eggs. Deep fry those chicken morsels until they are golden brown. Whisk together a sweet and savory sauce made with soy sauce, garlic, brown sugar, red chili flakes and hoisin sauce.

General tso's chicken: Spices play a key part in the flavor profile of general tso's chicken. Hot chili pepper flakes or powder, or even fresh chilies, are a key ingredient, as is ginger and garlic.

General Tao was a real person, but he was not a chef. Zuo Zongtang, also known as General Tso in the United States, was a well-known military man from Hunan Province in China.