general drew's chicken

After a week of being spoiled by Dan's parents, eating at delicious restaurants for almost every meal, it's no surprise that Dan and I were less than thrilled to go back to our regular meal of hot dogs and sauteed zucchini.  Not that there's anything wrong with these foods perse (although the health benefits of hot dogs are clearly debatable), but when you eat them for the majority of your meals every week, well, let's just say it gets kind of old.

So, when I asked Dan what he wanted to make for dinner the other night, his less-than-enthusiastic, "eh...I dunno..." didn't come as a surprise.  But suddenly he came up with an idea.  He wanted to make the version of General Tso's chicken that our friend Drew makes.  Drew lives in Vail, so Dan gave him a call to catch up and get the recipe.  Drew rattled off the recipe from memory. He makes a lot of it by feel, so he didn't always have exact measurements.  I think that that's the best way to cook (although, admittedly, I'm not good at cooking that way).

I debated whether or not to post the recipe here; I kind of feel like it's Drew's secret, special recipe. But since Drew is a sharer, I think he'd be pretty pleased that I'm sharing his delicious food with you all.  So, if you'd like to make yourself a slightly healthier version of Chinese takeout, here's how to make General Drew's Chicken:

Cut up the chicken (we did two chicken breasts, boneless, skinless) and marinate it in dry sherry (about a cup), soy sauce (about 1/3 of a cup) and a smashed clove of garlic.  We left it in there for about an hour, but I'm sure you could do slightly shorter or a longer period of time.  

Next bread the chicken in cornstarch and immediately fry it in vegetable or peanut oil.  When the chicken has a crispy crust, remove it from the oil.  

Leave some of the oil in the frying pan and add crushed red pepper and minced garlic to taste.  Let this simmer for a minute or so.  

Add 1/3 cup of corn syrup, 2 tbs soy sauce, 1 tbs vinegar, 1 tbs sugar, and a dash of ginger.  Let this simmer together for a bit and adjust seasonings to taste.  

Add chicken back into the sauce mixture.  Next time, we would double the sauce, because we like a lot of sauce, but that's up to you.  You can also add any vegetables you might like to include in your dish at this time.  Or, if you don't want any vegetables, don't add them. 

Here was our final product.  We served it with rice too.  Oh, and don't forget to sprinkle on the sesame seeds! That's the best part!

Thanks, Drew, for the awesome recipe and for helping us to break out of the hot dog/zucchini blues!