The next couple of weeks is a busy time in my kitchen, Pancake Day, Valentines, I have to cook soul food for Mardis Gras, a rocking Jambalaya, Buffalo Wings for when I watch the Super Bowl and most definitely celebrate the Chinese New Year. I hasten to add I am not American but they would kind of have this month’s events sewn in the bag if not for Chinese New Year. Now everyone has most likely had at one time in their life a Sweet and Sour or Cantonese Pork or Chicken from the local take away. You know the big deep fried doughy balls of slightly tough meat in a sharp Day-Glo orange sauce. It is about as close to being authentic Chinese as my mother is.

I can only hope to cap Sweet and Sour by giving you a version of a totally bastardised American Chinese dish. Again sweet, a little spicy and altogether created for the palates of mid-twentieth century America a dish called General Tso’s Chicken. The dish is named after General Tso Tsung-tang, a Qing dynasty general and statesman, however, any connection is very tenuous. The origins of the dishes invention are in the 1950’s influx of Chinese to the United States.

The dish is reported to have been introduced to New York City in the early 1970s as an example of Hunan cooking though it is not typical of Hunanese cuisine, which is traditionally very spicy and rarely sweet. Fuchsia Dunlop, in the New York Times, identified the claim of a Taiwan-based chef Peng Chang-Kuei. Peng was the Nationalist government banquets’ chef and fled to Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War. In 1973, he moved to New York to open a restaurant and experimented and developed Hunanese-style cuisine adopting it for western tastes.

Other chefs claim that they created the dish or variations which include vegetables, meat other than chicken in a sweetened sauce. Later the chicken was deep fried before being added to the sauce, now almost every American Chinese restaurant has General Tso’s Chicken on the menu. Where the dish is cooked outside of the United States the dish is less sweet with more vinegar or rice wine vinegar and soy sauce in the ingredients. This is more to my taste and I have an admission I’m really rather partial to it, so here is my version.

General Tso’s Chicken      serves 4
As always a general note of caution
BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN FRYING IN HOT OIL.

1 Carrot, peeled and cut into fine strips

100 gr Button Mushrooms, wiped and quartered
1 Red Pepper, diced
A small bunch of Spring Onions, washed and sliced into 2 cm pieces
1 small Red Chilli, finely sliced
3 Cloves of Garlic, peeled and crushed
3 cm piece of Ginger, peeled and finely chopped
100 ml quality Chicken Stock
2 tablespoons of Oil
2 tablespoons Soft Brown Sugar
1 tablespoon Tomato Paste
2 tablespoon Sherry Vinegar
2 tablespoons Rice Wine or Dry Sherry
1 tablespoon Corn Flour
2 Cloves
A good pinch of Chinese Five Spice

for the fried chicken
2 skinned chicken breasts, washed and diced
2 egg whites
Juice of 1 lemon
50 gr Corn Flour
Sea Salt and Cayenne Pepper
2 pints Vegetable Oil

For the sauce heat the vegetable oil in a wok and stir-fry the carrots, mushrooms, garlic and ginger for two to three minutes then add the peppers. In a small pan, heat the chicken stock, vinegar, rice wine, sugar, cloves and Chinese five spice and bring to the boil. Simmer for twenty minutes then thicken with the corn flour mixed with a little water and the tomato puree. After another five minutes simmering, strain into the wok and set on a very low heat.

For the chicken, sieve the corn flour into a large bowl and add a generous amount of salt and cayenne pepper. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites and lemon juice. Then dip the chicken pieces into the corn flour, the egg whites and back into the corn flour. In your wok or a large heavy bottom, pan heat the oil to 160°C / 320 F using a thermometer to check. If you do not have a thermometer have a few cubes of stale white bread to hand. Place a bread cube in the oil if it rises to the surface and cooks to a golden brown in a couple of minutes the oil is hot enough.

Fry the chicken in batches carefully lowering into the hot oil, for around six to eight minutes or until the batter is crisp and golden, turning from time to time with a large slotted spoon. When the chicken is cooked using the slotted spoon remove from the hot oil, drain on kitchen paper and place into the hot sauce. Add the Spring onions and simmer for a couple more minutes and then serve with steamed rice and garnish with a few extra, finely sliced spring onion tops.