General Sun Tzu's Chicken or NotChicken. He flanked Tso with the help of Sun Pin.

I made some General's Tofu, or if it was chicken, jeung bau gei kau the other day. It wasn't chicken as my Yeti wife does not eat the fowl nor the flesh, except for fishes and other sea-sonal things. I did some research, or rather searches on Google which substitutes for research for the lazy, into what is typically called General Tso (or other spelling variants such as Zuo) chicken dishes, and I didn't like what I saw. My favorite version of this Americanized Hunan dish had exhibited citrus floral scents, had that unami element that is often missing, and was not sickly sweet with too much sugar. It was also fairly spicy and flecked with lightly toasted sesame seeds. I tried to reproduce that and it was fairly successful.

Purists may think that this is just a version of orange chicken, but that traditionally has preserved orange peel, is based on a chili sauce, and is not sweet. This was one of the few experiments that I tried when the Yeti wife was home instead of trying it out by myself first and then reproducing a more successful version later.

Technique:
First prep the sauce ingredients but do not cook or add to the wok. Then prep and cook the chicken or tofu. I recommend using 12-16 ounces of protein for the amount of sauce this makes. Reserve the chicken or tofu, prepare the sauce, and toss the cooked protein in the finished sauce. I love to serve this with crisp, steamed vegetables tossed with lemon juice and a pinch of salt such as broccoli, asparagus, green beans, or sliced root vegetables.

General Tzu's flanking manuver sauce
Mix thoroughly in a bowl:
1 tablespoon hoisin
juice of 2 large oranges or about 1/4 cup of good orange juice
1 large or 2 small garlic cloves, crushed or minced
1 tablespoon soy sauce or, preferably, tamari
1 teaspoon fresh chopped ginger or ginger powder
1 teaspoon water
1/4 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
(optional if want additional heat) a few dashes of vinegar-based hot sauce, such as Tabasco or Durkee

have handy, but not mixed together:
about 4-6 dried pepper pods or fresh Thai chilies
1 heaping teaspoon of sesame seeds
2 teaspoons of canola oil or peanut oil
1 green onion or scallion, diced pretty thin (optional)
1 teaspoon of corn starch slurried in about 1/4 cup of cold water

Get everything else ready as once the sauce is cooked the dish is basically finished:
Cook some rice. I recommend my sushi rice or jasmine rice (earlier posting). Prep and have your veggies cooked and ready.
Cook your chicken or tofu as you like. I like to cut the protein into small pieces and then lightly bread the pieces and shallow-fry until golden brown.
Set the cooked protein off to the side until sauce is ready.

Add the canola oil and pepper pods to your wok over medium high heat. Allow the pods to flavor the oil. This takes only a few minutes. If you want spicier General Tzu, leave the peppers in at this point. If you want milder Tzu, take the peppers out or don't use them at all. Add the sesame seeds, but be careful as they will start to pop and dance and may exit the wok at a good velocity. As soon as you hear the first few pops, add your hoisin mixture and stir through. Bring this mixture to a boil and slowly add a few dribbles of the corn starch slurry until just before your desired thickness. Stop adding the slurry early (you may need to add a touch of plain water if you get a bit thicker than desired) as adding the protein back in usually causes the sauce to thicken a little more.

Toss your chicken or tofu into the sauce, stir through, and serve over rice. See, wasn't that easy? And it's better than those sugar-and-vinegar sauces you'd normally see Tso eating. Sun Tzu and Sun Pin pity poor Tso T'sung-T'ang's complexity-free and not as good chickeny concoction!

Serves about 2 Yetis, or 4 people with the veggies included, or 2 people with nice and well-microwaved leftovers for lunch the next day.