The fascinating (and tasty) history of a Chinese food icon
Guilty pleasures. We all have them. Who among us hasn’t snuck away for a secret parking lot rendezvous with a box of gas station chicken livers or huddled around a dimly-lit computer screen to binge-watch 90 Day Fiancé?
It’s tempting to pretend that my own guilty pleasure is a quiet meal of braised oyster cheeks with lightly teased bison disks and free-range lime fritters. But when I’m unsupervised and left to my own devices, I will draw the curtains, slip into something comfortable, and embrace the dish that dares to speak its name in polite company, a meal that incites both vocal revulsion and quiet loyalty, the much maligned and universally misunderstood cornerstone of Chinese-American cuisine—General Tso’s chicken.
General Tso’s chicken is (for better or worse) the most famous Hunanese dish in the world. This comforting concoction of crispy chunks of chicken tossed in a sweet, tangy, chili-laced sauce appears on restaurant menus across the United States, where it’s become virtually synonymous with Chinese-American food. Unfortunately, General Tso’s chicken has also become synonymous with low-quality, Americanized versions of Chinese food that far too many people in the U.S. consider “Chinese food”, while almost no one in China has even heard of General Tso’s chicken, let alone eaten it.
General Tso’s chicken is named for Tso Tsung-t’ang, a nineteenth-century Hunanese general who died in 1885 after a ruthless career in the Qing dynasty. While indirectly and sometimes directly responsible for the death of millions, we can clear him of any responsibility for the existence of his namesake chicken dish since he died long before the dish was invented by Chef Peng Chang-kuei in the 1950s.
As a young man, Chef Peng trained under the personal chef of a Hunanese government official. There he learned to pair the haute cuisine of other Chinese regions to the spicy, tart, and salty flavors of Hunan.
He soon rose to prominence cooking for high-ranking Nationalist government officials, but when Mao came to power in 1949, Peng (along with an entire generation of classically trained chefs) fled to Taiwan, fearing for their lives and their ability to practice what became known as “reactionary cooking.”
He soon opened a restaurant in Taiwan serving Hunan court cuisine to the public for the first time, and at some point during the 50s, Chef Peng created a dish using the typical flavors of Hunan and named it in honor of the famous Hunanese General—Tso Tsung-t’ang.
Then in the early 70s, a few of those classically trained refugee chefs from Taiwan teamed up with some American restauranteurs to open a string of Chinese haute cuisine restaurants in America. These restaurants were so wildly successful that it initiated a turf war that drove a couple of entrepreneurs to go to Taiwan for inspiration and to recruit new chefs.
They ended up at Chef Peng’s restaurants and fell in love with the food. In fact, they loved it so much that they essentially copied Chef Peng’s menu, making slight changes to a few dishes, such as adding sugar to Peng’s poultry homage to General Tso.
It wasn’t long until word of these copycats spread to Taiwan and Chef Peng decided to open his own New York restaurant to combat what he considered to be usurpers to his Hunanese culinary throne. But by the time his restaurant opened, the Americanized versions of his food had become so popular that many diners thought Peng was the copycat. His restaurant was still very successful, but in spite of his success and in spite of Peng being generally credited as the inventor of the dish, the Americanized, sticky-sweet version of General Tso’s chicken won American hearts and quickly spread to every Chinese takeout menu from New York to California.
What happened to Chef Peng’s version? Chef Peng Chang-kuei closed his New York restaurant many years ago and moved back to Taiwan where he and his son continued the tradition at the Taiwan locations of Peng’s Garden Hunan Restaurant and helped with the documentary “The Search for General Tso” which documents his life and the development of the dish. Chef Peng Chang-kuei died in 2016.
Chef Peng didn’t leave the public any written recipe for his General Tso’s chicken, but the recipe below is as described by his top apprentice Chef Chen Cheng-chuan, who trained with the dish’s inventor since 1969. This recipe will guide you towards true General Tso’s chicken heaven with all the pleasure and none of the guilt.
OG General Tso’s Chicken – Chef Peng style
- 1 Tbsp ground ginger
- 1 Tbsp minced garlic
- 3-4 Tbsp dried chili peppers
- 1 ½ lb boneless chicken thighs, cut into 6 to 8 pieces
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp white vinegar
- 1/2 Tbsp potato starch mixed with ½ Tbsp water
- ¼ tsp MSG
- 2 Tbsp chicken stock
- ¼ Tbsp sugar
- 1 egg
- 4 Cups vegetable oil for frying
1. Make deep cuts into the chicken pieces so that the sauce can be absorbed into the meat.
2. Beat the egg in a mixing bowl and add the soy sauce, vinegar, potato starch, chicken stock, sugar, and MSG to make the sauce.
3. Add the chicken to the sauce and mix until the chicken is well coated.
4. Marinate the chicken in the sauce in the refrigerator for half an hour.
5. Remove the chicken from the refrigerator and toss the chicken with the sauce again to ensure the egg and other ingredients have infused each piece of chicken.
6. Heat the four cups of cooking oil in a wok.
7. Add the chicken, but during the frying process remove the chicken chunks from the oil with a cooking sieve several times to prevent them from being overly cooked too soon. The chef says this is to achieve a crispy exterior, while maintaining a tender, juicy interior. This will take some trial and error to perfect.
8. Take the chicken out and set to the side on a rack to drain.
9. Add the ginger, garlic, dried peppers to the wok and lightly sauté to let the flavors bloom.
10. Add the chicken back to the wok, pour the sauce over the chicken and stir fry on high heat briefly. Don’t allow the chicken to overcook. Cook it until it is about 80% done, allowing the residual heat to finish cooking once it is removed from the wok.
11. Serve with rice.
Note: The original recipe includes no broccoli, no sesame seeds, no scallions, no orange slices, or any other additional accoutrements. Proceed with caution to avoid the ghost of Chef Peng haunting your dreams and spoiling your dish. You’ve been warned.
Mike McJunkin is a native Chattanoogan who has traveled abroad extensively, trained chefs, and owned and operated restaurants. Join him on Facebook at facebook.com/SushiAndBiscuits