Laura’s General Tso's Seitan
"I got this recipe from Laura (aka “amorsalado” on LJ), and it’s a great recipe she once cooked that her non-vegetarian husband told her she could make for him anytime. It convinced him of the tastiness of vegetarian food. :) She said, “This General Tso's recipe was what sold him, and it's so easy, too!”"
- Ready In:
- 20mins
- Ingredients:
- 12
- Serves:
-
4-6
ingredients
- 1 lb seitan, in strips
- 1⁄2 cup soy sauce
- 1⁄2 cup distilled white vinegar
- 1⁄2 cup water
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 garlic cloves, minced or 1 teaspoon minced garlic, to taste
- 1 teaspoon peeled and minced gingerroot
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1 large eggs or 1/4 cup egg white, beaten lightly
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 4 dried hot red chiles, seeded (and veins taken out, if you want extra heat removed)
- cooked rice, for serving
directions
- In a bowl combine the soy sauce, vinegar, 1/2 cup water, sugar, garlic, and ginger root.
- In another bowl, combine the egg and cornstarch and dip the seitan pieces.
- Heat the oil in a wok or deep, heavy skillet until very hot, add the seitan and fry it for 4 to 6 minutes, or until it is crisp-ish. (This was so much better after I finally broke down and bought a wok. It really does make a huge difference!).
- Add the soy sauce mixture and the chile peppers and cook the mixture over moderately high heat for 2 minutes, or until heated through. (I usually bring the sauce to a boil after I've poured it on, and then reduce the heat to simmer until it's as thick as I want it. It takes about five minutes, because I like the sauce pretty thick.).
- Serve with cooked rice and enjoy!
- Laura says: “This is more than enough for the three of us with left overs the next day, and it's really yummy. I'm actually not much of a chef, so I tend to keep it simple and quick.”.
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Reviews
-
I don't find that the sauce, which is 1.5C of water based liquids to reduce so quickly. I end up with everything that was once crispy getting soggy and having to boil down for ages. Can use tofu as a substitute for seitan. -
This recipe has a lot of potential! But I agree with the other reviewer that the proportions were off. I think of General Tso's chicken or seitan or whatever as being sweet as well as salty - this was just very, very salty. I am pretty sure this is because of the amount of soy sauce combined with how much you have to reduce the sauce to get it to thicken up. Next time I make this, I am going to use low-sodium soy sauce, double the amount of sugar, and add a little cornstarch to get it to thicken up without reducing quite so much. I quite liked the method for frying seitan and will definitely use it again. -
First off, I want to say that I really enjoyed this recipe and it's VERY simple to make. The only reason I felt the need for three stars was that I think the proportions are actually a bit off. I found my finished product very salty. Not inedible but very noticeable. I think with a little adjust this dish will pass good and be excellent:-)
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
Julesong
Tukwila, 87
<p>It's simply this: I love to cook! :) <br /><br />I've been hanging out on the internet since the early days and have collected loads of recipes. I've tried to keep the best of them (and often the more unusual) and look forward to sharing them with you, here. <br /><br />I am proud to say that I have several family members who are also on RecipeZaar! <br /><br />My husband, here as <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/39857>Steingrim</a>, is an excellent cook. He rarely uses recipes, though, so often after he's made dinner I sit down at the computer and talk him through how he made the dishes so that I can get it down on paper. Some of these recipes are in his account, some of them in mine - he rarely uses his account, though, so we'll probably usually post them to mine in the future. <br /><br />My sister <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/65957>Cathy is here as cxstitcher</a> and <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/62727>my mom is Juliesmom</a> - say hi to them, eh? <br /><br />Our <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/379862>friend Darrell is here as Uncle Dobo</a>, too! I've been typing in his recipes for him and entering them on R'Zaar. We're hoping that his sisters will soon show up with their own accounts, as well. :) <br /><br />I collect cookbooks (to slow myself down I've limited myself to purchasing them at thrift stores, although I occasionally buy an especially good one at full price), and - yes, I admit it - I love FoodTV. My favorite chefs on the Food Network are Alton Brown, Rachel Ray, Mario Batali, and Giada De Laurentiis. I'm not fond over fakey, over-enthusiastic performance chefs... Emeril drives me up the wall. I appreciate honesty. Of non-celebrity chefs, I've gotta say that that the greatest influences on my cooking have been my mother, Julia Child, and my cooking instructor Chef Gabriel Claycamp at Seattle's Culinary Communion. <br /><br />In the last couple of years I've been typing up all the recipes my grandparents and my mother collected over the years, and am posting them here. Some of them are quite nostalgic and are higher in fat and processed ingredients than recipes I normally collect, but it's really neat to see the different kinds of foods they were interested in... to see them either typewritten oh-so-carefully by my grandfather, in my grandmother's spidery handwriting, or - in some cases - written by my mother years ago in fountain pen ink. It's like time travel. <br /><br />Cooking peeve: food/cooking snobbery. <br /><br />Regarding my black and white icon (which may or may not be the one I'm currently using): it the sea-dragon tattoo that is on the inside of my right ankle. It's also my personal logo.</p>
