Savor NY: General Tso's Chicken

The original General Tso's chicken was invented by Chef Peng in Taiwan in the 1950's. He opened a Hunanese restaurant where he made the dish for the very first time.

It was named after a famous 19th Century General from Hunan province and was made with chunks of dark meat chicken tossed in crispy batter of soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, hot chilies and touches of sugar.

Compared to the dish New Yorkers know today, this version was more tart and spicier.

While Peng's restaurant was gaining popularity, so was Chinese food in New York City.

Two chefs looking for new concepts came across Peng's dish while in Taiwan. The Chef's T.T. Wang and David Keh both decided to bring General Tso's back to New York, but with a couple of changes.

"They got rid of the vinegar sauce that was in the original General Tso's chicken and they balanced it out with a little more sugar in it," said Ed Schoenfeld, New York restaurateur and culinary mastermind. 

Schoenfeld worked with Chef David Keh in one of Manhttan's first Hunanese restaurants in the 1970's. He said that the General Tso's in New York was made sweeter and less spicy than the original version to appeal to the American palate.

The popularity of General Tso's combined with the Chinese restaurant boom of the 1970's allowed the dish to quickly spread throughout the five boroughs, and now thousands of New Yorkers everyday order General Tso's from their neighborhood's best Chinese Restaurants.
 

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