Fried Rice

To go along with the theme of Asian cuisine, I made fried rice for the first time today. I kept it simple, but this dish is versatile and you can easily add any type of vegetable or meat that you want. This rice would be a great side dish to homemade General Tso's chicken (see my last blog post for the recipe!)

Ingredients:

3 tbsp. Vegetable oil
1 tbsp. Oyster flavored sauce
1 tbsp. Sesame oil
2 cups white rice
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp. Soy sauce
1 large carrot
1 small onion

Instructions:

Boil the rice as usual. Set aside when it is cooked. Now, dice the carrot and onion into tiny pieces and then add two tbsp. of vegetable oil to a pan, along with the sesame oil and oyster sauce, and cook the vegetables for about five minutes. Then, in a separate pan add the rest of the vegetable oil with the garlic. Let it cook for a few minutes and then turn to high heat and add the rice and the soy sauce. This will cook fast so stir continuously and don't let it burn. Now, add the vegetables into the pan of rice and stir it all around. It is ready to  serve. Enjoy!

Homemade General Tso's Chicken

Like most people, I love Chinese food.  But usually, two meals from the Chinese restaurant costs nearly $20, and I'm all about sticking to a budget and making low cost meals.  So I decided to get creative and see if I could recreate one of our favorite take-out dinners at home.  And there's another twist to this meal - it's a crock pot recipe!  This is an easy and inexpensive way to eat Chinese food that tastes just like the real thing.  In fact, my boyfriend told me that this tasted like the General Tso's from our absolute favorite Chinese restaurant, and that's quite the compliment!

This recipe yields two large servings.

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken
2 tbsp. canola oil
1 cup corn starch
1 tsp. of salt
Dash of pepper 
1 tsp. garlic powder
4 tbsp. hoisin sauce (find this in the international foods aisle at the grocery store)
4 tbsp. soy sauce
4 tbsp. rice vinegar
2 tbsp. sugar
2 cloves minced garlic
4 tbsp. water
1 tsp. of red pepper flakes 


Instructions:

First, dice the chicken into small bite-sized pieces.  Mix together the corn starch, salt, pepper, and garlic powder in a bowl and then pour it into a large ziploc bag.  Add the chicken pieces to the bag and shake around so that they are all coated.  Now, heat the canola oil in a pan on medium heat.  When it's heated, add the chicken to the pan and cook for about 1 minute on each side.  You want the outside of the chicken pieces to be browned, but the chicken will not be fully cooked at this point.  When that is done, add the chicken pieces to your crockpot.  Next, mix together the hoisin sauce, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, minced garlic, water, and red pepper flakes.  Whisk this together until it is combined.  Add approximately three quarters of this mixture to the crockpot.  Set the other bit aside in the fridge.  Give the crockpot a quick stir, and then cover it and cook on high for about one and a half hours. 

About 15 minutes before the chicken is done in the crockpot, cook some rice to be served alongside the chicken.  I made white rice to keep it simple (but I'd like to tackle fried rice as my next homemade Chinese food item!)  Then, you are going to open up the crockpot and pour in the rest of the sauce mixture.  Stir it around, and then serve immediately. 

Enjoy!

This is the chicken being cooked after being coated with the corn starch mixture.  The corn starch gives the chicken that crispy breading that makes the General Tso's so good!

This is what the sauce mixture should look like.

 

The finished product!  It looks and tastes just like the real thing!

Check out the breading on the chicken - perfection!