My hubby loves rice. He also loves General Tao's Chicken. I've tried and tried to make it like the kind you find at the chinese restaurant and it came close, but I know that if I would rather eat it in a restaurant then it just wasn't close enough.

Last night he asked what I was planning for supper and suggested I make General Tao's Chicken. So I'm thinking he must have liked it okay the last time I made it, but my recipe is on the computer that crashed! A month or so ago, I was blog surfing and saw a different recipe for it and thought hmmm, I'll have to try this one. Then last night after he said that's what he wanted I had to go on a search for the blog where I saw that recipe. I found one blog that had a recipe, but it just didn't look right. I clicked on another and they said they got their recipe from someone else, but had changed it. So I thought well maybe it was the person they got it from. Well, come to find out they got their recipe from Frieda Loves Bread. Oh yeah! That's where I saw it!

I went ahead and started my rice. I used 2 cups of water, 1 cup of rice, 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 chicken bouillon cube. When it started boiling I put on the lid with a dishtowel under it, turned it down to the lowest setting for 8 minutes and then turned off the burner. For more details on making rice, scroll down to the middle of this post.

The one thing that I have perfected is the batter that I use to coat my chicken and I'm very reluctant to change that, but I did use her sauce with one change and we'll get to that in a minute. Now, while I was making this I was text messaging my little sister. She asked if it was hard to make. It's really not, it just takes a little time. From start to finish it took me about an hour, but I could have probably done it in less than 30 minutes if I wasn't taking pictures and texting :)  If it's your first time making it, I'd plan on spending an hour, but it is so worth it! Oh yeah, the batter.

3 eggs
1 cup cornstarch

I cracked 3 eggs in a bowl and beat them with a whisk.

Then I mixed in 1 cup of cornstarch. It kind of had the consistency of glue...wood glue to be exact.


I cut up 2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts into small chunks and dumped them in the bowl of batter and stirred it with a spoon to coat all of the chicken.


I heated up oil in the skillet on medium-high. It was probably about a cup of oil, just enough to go about halfway up the pieces of chicken. Using tongs, I picked up the pieces of chicken and dropped them in the oil spacing them apart so they didn't stick to each other. Once I had filled up the skillet, I pushed them closer together and then added a few more pieces.


Once they were a light golden brown on the bottom, I turned them over and let them get golden brown on the other side. I started out doing this with tongs, but after getting popped a couple of times I got my poker fork and used it to flip them over!


When they were done I put them on a rack on top of a cookie sheet to drain. If you're not quite sure if they're done, just pull out a piece, cut it in half and push down on it a little. If the middle is white and the juices are clear it's done.


This is where I started following Frieda's recipe for the sauce. I stirred all the ingredients up in a bowl except I substituted rice vinegar for the apple cider. Then I added 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes to the oil in the skillet. I also used my kitchen shears to snip off the tops of some green onions and added it to the skillet as well.


Following her instructions I poured in the sauce and stirred it until it was thick. Then I put in the cooked chicken and stirred it until every piece was thickly coated. My mouth was seriously watering at this point! I spooned the rice on some plates and then spooned the chicken on top.


I thought you might need an extra large picture of this yummy goodness! I finally did it. Now that I can make Honey Walnut Shrimp (my favorite) and General Tao's Chicken (my hubby's favorite), the only thing left to keep me from wanting to eat chinese out are egg rolls and crab rangoon!