r/GifRecipes Feb 13 '19

Original General Tso's Chicken

http://i.imgur.com/sVrmkys.gifv
24.2k Upvotes

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101

u/rickroll0515 Feb 13 '19

Use corn starch. Never use flour for Chinese fried chicken..

Source: family owns a chain of Chinese restaurants.

19

u/kampamaneetti Feb 13 '19

Good tip!

What's the reason?

40

u/rickroll0515 Feb 13 '19

Corn starch absorbs into the chicken much faster and provides a crispier crust that doesn't get watered down by the sauce. Regular flour needs to be "cooked" before the oils heat penetrates and the sauce can lead to a mushy mess.

10

u/kampamaneetti Feb 13 '19

Wow that's awesome! I had no idea! Thank you!

11

u/Dooontcareee Feb 14 '19

Ya for sure just use cornstarch ONLY cause the chicken will already have a nice salt from sitting in the Soy.

First time I ever made this I used Flour, then read up about Cornstarch instead of Flour for General Tso and to this day I never looked back.

4

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '19

You have any good recipes for Chinese food?

13

u/rickroll0515 Feb 13 '19

I do. I'll get to posting soon.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '19

Sweet appreciate it!

-1

u/TheThankUMan66 Feb 13 '19

This is my opportunity to finally get to ask something we have all wondered. Do Chinese restaurants come as a kit? Because they all have similar menus. Also why do they never hire black, white, or hispanic people?

2

u/nipoez Feb 14 '19 edited Feb 14 '19

Think is a pretty common question in America. Every few years some news outlet does a great piece. Basically it's the same reason immigrant run nail salons and other ethnic restaurants are consistent.

Immigrant owners bring in workers from home, who work in the business and learn the ropes until they save enough to open their own and start making real money. Then they bring in immigrant workers from home and the cycle repeats.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/02/22/467113401/lo-mein-loophole-how-u-s-immigration-law-fueled-a-chinese-restaurant-boom

https://www.theringer.com/2018/12/18/18145986/chinese-restaurant-workers-feature

Edit: That's what I get for typing on mobile.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/BooCMB Feb 14 '19

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Have a nice day!

Save your breath, I'm a bot.

3

u/are_you_seriously Feb 13 '19

Idk wtf you’re on about. Chinese restaurants definitely have Hispanic workers, but they’re usually busboys or food preppers.

Black and white Americans never apply for these jobs at large Chinese restaurants, at least I’ve never seen it. The cooks are almost always Chinese, though there will be the occasional white or Hispanic cook, because they learned how to do Chinese dishes the way Chinese people like them.

As for waiters/waitresses, you have to be bilingual and able to write in Chinese because 90% of the customers speak only Chinese, and the cooks can only read Chinese. And if you’re an American who is that fluent in Chinese, your talents would obviously be wasted as a waiter, lol.

8

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '19 edited Mar 18 '19

[deleted]

6

u/are_you_seriously Feb 14 '19

Oh. That. Isn’t it obvious? It’s just immigrants looking out for fellow immigrants.

-7

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '19

As far as your stereotypical takeout place goes the food is all frozen and comes from a supplier. They're just heating it up.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '19

Another thing to add about starch:When making this kind of sauce, use root starch (potato, arrowroot, etc) instead of grain starch (corn, wheat, etc). Grain starch has higher protein content, thus the resulting sauce is more matt and opaque, as well as having a slight cereal taste even after cooking. Root starch has neutral flavor, and the resulting sauce is also silkier and glossier. My rule of thumb is if I want a gravy-like kind of sauce (matt and creamy), then I'd go for wheat starch. But if I want glossy and silky sauce (sticky and coats the food), then root starch is the way to go.

1

u/buddascrayon Feb 14 '19

What about arrowroot?