Recipe testing

We're having a party now that the kitchen is done.  I wanted to call it a 'kitchen warming' but J didn't.  Late September is mid-autumn festival, so that is what we are celebrating.  And we moved it up one weekend because a couple friends couldn't make the original date.  

We decided to do Chinese takeout style and tiki drinks.  This meant a round of new recipes so I've been testing as soon as the kitchen was ready.

Still need to put everything away before all the people show up, but this is how the recipe testing has gone.

First go at General Tso's chicken.  I'm using Kenji's recipe on Serious Eats.  I tried to follow the recipe exactly but it took longer than I expected and I messed up in a few places.

I messed up the batter, but decided it was too much trouble anyway and would simplify it down to a simple flour dredge.  And the sauce was waaay too dark, calling for 3 tablespoons of dark soy sauce.  I resolved to lighted it up a bit.  And so much sauce.  Too much.

And it could use a little more heat.

This was the first go at mapo tofu, using a recipe from Lucky Peach.  It looked right and tasty right but was SO oily.  

I wanted it to be more saucy.

This is the sweet and sour pork from The Chinese Kitchen.  Surprisingly well balanced and good.

When I made this again for friends, it took forever and I messed up the batter.  We decided to cut this from the list so that there weren't two recipes calling for frying.

Second try at General Tso's.  I went with 1 tablespoon dark soy and 2 tablespoons light.  This turned out really well.  This dish was completely gone.

Next go at mapo tofu.  I wanted it more saucy so I went with more chicken stock but with the cornstarch slurry, it turned out too thickly saucy.

Fried rice.  I had to try out the oven and it was surprisingly challenging to get it to broil.  And I used the new rice cooker!  But this turned out pretty well, but the scallions are particularly sad right now so apparently one bunch is not enough.

I did a double batch at once to see how that would go.  I marinated all the chicken in advance (a couple hours) to see how it would hold up.  Then I went with a simple flour dredge with some sichuan peppercorns.  I deep fried them in advance and left them to drain on paper towels.  Granted, it wasn't much in advance, but not straight into the fryer like before.

And I mixed up a double batch of the sauce.

The flavor was still good, but more vinegary than the perfect batch.  We think it's because of the double batch of sauce because it takes longer to come up to a boil in the wok.  I think it needs to be single batches only.

The good thing is the chicken was perfect.  And still crispy.  Yum.  Those were delicious nuggets.

Last up as the mapo tofu.  Well, clearly it was too saucy, and too thin.  I have to go back to that original recipe...

So we're back to single batching everything.  I hope it turns out well.