GENERAL TSAO’S CHICKEN WINGS
This is a seriously, seriously great General Tsao’s recipe. I was never a General Tsao’s fan but this, this I can really down a bucket.
The recipe is roughly based on The Mission Chinese Food Cookbook, which I have, as I always do, rendered almost unrecognizable. Besides sugar and ketchup, almost none of the original ingredients has remained intact (see note at the end of the recipe) but something tells me that it can stand proudly on its own. The chicken wings are impossibly crispy, and more importantly, stay crispy even if they are hopelessly coated with this fruity, tangy, sweet and spicy sauce under that rich and deep rouge color with an almost jewel-like gloss. Really, this sauce, a reduction of pomegranate and cranberry juice with a layering of vinegars, chili paste and garlic . I don’t even care if you did it justice by frying your own batch of crunchy jacket-ed wings. I mean drench your McNuggets in it for all I care and I guarantee you that you’ll still want to bottle your own.
I don’t have much else to add, especially about the mystical emergence of General Tsao’s chicken in virtually every Chinese restaurant in the US (I mean Netflix has a documentary on it for crying out loud). When things are looking good, just shut up and wing it.
