Dakkangjung (Spicy Candied Fried Chicken. No, really.)

Every time my mother gets Chinese food, she gets General Tso's chicken. I don't know if this is her favorite, or my dad's favorite, or if it just evolved as the one thing all the kids would eat. But I now hate General Tso's chicken. It's so unnaturally sweet, and it's never crunchy the way it should be.

This recipe, which Jay and I made on Thursday, is like what General Tso's tries to be, but fails. It's sweet, but it's also hot from the ginger and chili pepper. The chicken is actually crunchy. It smells fantastic when you're thickening the sauce.

I've made a few changes from the original recipe, which I found here. First, the recipe calls for double deep frying the chicken. Neither of us really knew what that meant, and it wasn't explained, so we just coated the chicken again with cornstarch and threw it back in the oil. We agreed in the end that this step was unnecessary, and in fact made the chicken too dry. Frying it once will be fine. No really, it will.

Also, it took forever to make, because first you do the chicken, then you do the sauce, and in the end your friends are waiting two hours for dinner. Two nice smelling hours, but next time I'll be doing the sauce and the chicken simultaneously. We just didn't have the proper pots for it that night. The only benefit was that it gave me more time to drink.

Finally, sesame seeds are expensive, so I left them out. Sue me. You won't get much, since I obviously don't even have money for sesame seeds.



Dakkangjung

Ingredients:
- 4 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 cup peanuts
- 1 cup sesame seeds
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup cornstarch
- 2-3 dried chili peppers, crushed
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup corn syrup
- 1 cup thinly sliced fresh ginger
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 cup vinegar
- 3 tbsp soy sauce

Cut the chicken breasts into 1 inch chunks. Throw them in a bowl. Add the flour, cornstarch, salt, pepper, and eggs. Mix it with your hands. No seriously. I know you'll be picking flour off your fingernails for the next thirty minutes, but you need to coat that shit.

Then deep fry. Duh.

While those are frying, start the sauce. Boil one cup of water. Add the ginger to the boiling water. After about five minutes, add the soy, the brown sugar, and the vinegar. Boil it over medium heat for another five minutes. Then add the corn syrup. This can take anywhere from ten minutes to thirty minutes, so you need to watch it. It's done when it starts to take a while to pour from a spoon.

Add the chicken, peanuts, and chili. Mix. Eat. Then count on eating those leftovers tomorrow first thing, because you won't stop thinking about it. And maybe when you buy these ingredients, buy enough for making it twice. Cause you will.