It's been a while! To backtrack... through one of many daily conversations about food, we decided to try to put Chinese food into kabob form somehow (because everything tastes better on a stick). Thus, General Tso's kabobs were born! To pair a side, we thought we could put a twist on guacamole by using Asian-inspired flavors instead of traditional Mexican.
A trip to Safeway gave us the necessary ingredients - canned Chinese stir fry vegetables, Iron Chef brand General Tso's sauce (yes, we cheated... if you want to make your own, be our guest!), avocados, broccoli, onion, and red bell pepper. We already had chicken breast, rice, and some other sauces and spices on hand. We also stopped by the Chinese food restaurant in the same shopping center to buy 2 bags of the crispy wonton noodle chips for dipping (only 50 cents).
To prepare the kabobs, we cubed the chicken into 1-2 inch chunks and marinated it in the General Tso's sauce. We cut up the broccoli (which is a bit difficult to skewer... make sure you leave a thick enough stem on each piece!), bell pepper, and onion and marinated them as well. When we were ready to create the kabobs, we discovered we only had 4 skewers (and Jaime didn't bring more over like she said...), so we grilled them in 2 batches, with each skewer PILED with meat and veggies. We forced it to make 8 packed kabobs, but it would easily create more!
While the first kabobs were heating up, we prepared a cup of rice. We began our Asian quac so we could snack until the kabobs were done! We mashed up the avocado and stirred in some gyoza and soy sauces from the fridge. We drained and diced half of the stir fry veggies into tiny pieces to add texture - the water chestnuts were great. If we did it again, we might add some fresh pressed garlic, sea salt, and a tiny bit of wasabi to spice it up. With the crispy noodles, it was a fun change from cilantro and tortilla chips!
Once the rice was cooked, we heated oil in a wok to make fried rice. We craked an egg to cook in it first, then added the rest of the stir fry vegetables and the rice and kept it moving over the heat. I don't think our oil was hot enough... we didn't quite achieve the texture we were looking for, but it was still an edible rice side!
We flipped the kabobs once during cooking and left the grill lid mostly shut, using a flipper on its side to prop it open a bit (what Jenna's mom always did). Jenna was ecstatic to FINALLY grill chicken perfectly, without it being dry and overdone! The sauce coated everything well and made nice seared lines from the grill bars. (As we've learned from our bff Alton Brown, blackened coating on grilled food isn't burned meat, it's the sugar in the sauce!)
We plated the kabobs on top of the rice and served more guac on the side with the crispy noodles. YUM. It was a fun way to enjoy some General Tso's chicken without the breaded coating, without paying for take-out, and enjoying the last warmth of fall weather!
General Tso's Kabobs
2 large chicken breasts
1 head of broccoli
1 red bell pepper
1 onion
10+ kabob skewers
bottle of General Tso's sauce
Asian-Infused Guacamole
2 avocados
1/2 can of Chinese stir fry vegetables, drained
soy sauce to taste
gyoza sauce to taste
(fresh pressed garlic)
(pinch of sea salt)
(wasabi to taste, not much!)
crispy wonton noodles
No comments:
Post a Comment