Orange chicken

Wow. People actually view my blog now. It's craziness. I probably won't win any awards or anything, but in my books 240(ish) views is a lot! Naturally, as soon as the numbers jump I have to study for my French midterm and I abandon my legions of adoring fans for... well, for far too long, in any case!

So, as a reward for your patience, I am going to give you a real treat: orange chicken! It's a Chinese takeout favourite of mine and it is notoriously hard to get a good recipe for it! Everyone wants "authentic" orange chicken. Not me, no sir! I want the crispy, deep-fried, drenched in orange sauce kind that you get from the good takeout places. So, here goes nothing!

I adapted this recipe from this website, which has lots of Chinese takeout recipes. Now, you could just go to that website and get the recipe there, but mine has a little something extra, plus there are no pictures over there. Not cool. There is also a video, but she makes it look deceptively easy. Also not cool.

You will need the following ingredients for this recipe:

Stir-fry:
-1.5lbs chicken breast (~3 breasts)
-2 large green onions
-2 carrots
-Peanut oil, for frying

Sauce:
1½ cups orange juice (preferably fresh squeezed, but it does not have to be!)
-¼ cup brown sugar
-2Tbsp soy sauce
-1Tbsp chili garlic sauce
-2Tbsp cornstarch

Chicken Coating:
-1 cup cornstarch
-1 cup flour
-2 eggs

The instructions can get a little tricky, so please be careful to read the recipe thoroughly.

Start by cutting your chicken into 1-inch chunks. If this sort of thing is difficult, I like to try and think of the size of orange chicken pieces when I get takeout.

Then cut the carrots and green onions (green AND white parts) into thin slices. Don't worry if you don't have quite as many green onions as I do in the picture. I bought mine from the Hutterites at the Farmers' Market and they grow some really big green onions!

Set the chicken and veggies aside.

Mix together all the ingredients for the sauce except the cornstarch (orange juice, brown sugar, soy sauce, chili garlic sauce, ginger).

Mix the cornstarch for the sauce (the 2Tbsp portion) with a little water, just until it dissolves.

We'll now be talking about the ingredients for the chicken coating.

Beat the two eggs and put them in a bowl.

The next phase will be easiest if you set up a little station for yourself: one bowl of flour, one bowl of beaten eggs and one bowl of cornstarch. Next to your little station have a place to put the raw, coated chicken pieces.

Take each piece of chicken and dip it first in flour, then in egg, then in cornstarch and set aside. I recommend changing hands between the egg and cornstarch otherwise you'll get a ton of buildup on your fingers.

Your chicken will look something like this:












Heat up 2-3 cups of peanut oil in a wok. Take the coated pieces of chicken and deep fry them in the oil. Do not over-crowd the wok. I put about ten pieces of chicken in at a time. Deep fry them for five to six minutes, until golden and crispy. They should look like this when you're through:

Drain the chicken on a paper towel as I have done.

Remove your oil from the wok. Unless it is already old or it looks dirty, your oil can be saved and reused a couple of times before you discard it.

Wipe out the wok and add the sauce mixture to it and bring it to a boil. Add in the cornstarch and water mixture. It will begin to thicken right away, so stir thoroughly to avoid getting lumps in the sauce.

Stir until thick. This does not take long at all.

Add the chicken to the wok and coat well with the mixture. Then add in the carrots and onions. If you want your carrots to be cooked, I suggest steaming them beforehand. I, myself, like the crunch.

The chicken should already be cooked from the keep frying, so don't worry about leaving it in the wok for any amount of time. Just let it soak up the flavour and you're good to go!

This dish is super-yummy served with rice.

Enjoy!

THIS RECIPE IS:

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Boring version of recipe instructions:

Cut chicken into 1-inch chunks and slice carrots and green onions thinly. Mix together all sauce ingredients except cornstarch and set aside. The sauce's portion of the cornstarch should be mixed together with a little water until dissolved. Beat eggs. Dip each piece of chicken in flour, then egg, then cornstarch (chicken coating portion). Heat 2-3 cups peanut oil in wok. Deep fry chicken in batches for about 6 minutes. Drain chicken. Remove oil from wok and wipe out wok. Add sauce to wok and bring to a boil. Add in cornstarch and water mixture and stir until thick. Add chicken and coat well. Add carrots and onions and coat well. Serve with rice.

Yummy Stir Fry

About a year and a half to two years ago, my husband kept bugging me to make stir fry. However, I was pregnant and in no mood for stir fry because stir fry is boring.

Then my baby was born and my dad and step-mom came to visit. One evening, they made stir fry for me and my husband and it was delicious. Ever since, this general stir fry recipe has been a regular dish in our house.

Keep in mind that stir fry is very versatile and if any of these vegetables sound unappealing, just leave them out.

You will need the following ingredients for this recipe:

-2 chicken breasts
-3Tbsp vegetable oil
-2 cloves garlic
-2 medium carrots
-1 red or orange bell pepper
-2 small heads of broccoli (or 1 large)
-Top 1/4 of a leek
-2 small onions
-1 zucchini
-About 1 half a 300mL bottle of spicy Szechuan sauce or stir fry sauce of your preference
-3/4cup uncooked rice

Trim fat from chicken breasts and chop them into chunks. Size doesn't really matter - it's your preference.

In 1Tbsp of the vegetable oil, stir fry the chicken in a wok until it's white on the outside, like you did with the Herbed Chicken recipe.

In the mean time, prepare the vegetables. Again, I never ever... okay, I very rarely use fresh garlic because it is a royal pain in the you-know-where. I use jarred. If you do use fresh, peel it and mince it up, preferably with a santoku knife. Peel and slice the carrots into thin disks. Seed and thinly slice the red pepper. Chop off the top of the broccoli and slice it into small florets. Cut off the top 1/4 of a leek and thinly slice it into stalks. Chop the onion. Halve the zucchini and chop. Actually this is all made easier with a santoku knife. If you don't have one, I recommend you invest.

Once your chicken is white on the outsides (it does not need to be cooked through yet), add the vegetables and the rest of the vegetable oil and mix well with the chicken.

"Asian Family": the good brand!!

Mix together the vegetables and chicken well. Once the vegetables and chicken are well-combined, add the Szechuan sauce. By the way, when you are buying your spicy Szechuan sauce, you will be much happier buying a good, expensive kind and I'll tell you why. Once, when we were short on cash but craving stir fry, we bought this other kind of Szechuan sauce. Also a name brand, yes, but it was a larger bottle for less money: a no-brainer!... or so we thought! Alas, when we attempted a stir fry with this alternate brand, all it did was turn our chicken pink and make our vegetables bitter. Not a good experience.

So, once you add your good brand of Szechuan (or other stir fry) sauce, mix up the vegetables again and let them cook. In the mean time, get your rice cooking. Remember: 1.5 cups of water for 3/4 cups of uncooked rice. Once your vegetables are well cooked and looking like this:


you may add the rice and stir it up so that it looks like this:

Serve it right away so it's very hot. The carrots will be quite firm still, but I like them this way.

Enjoy!
Makes good leftovers for babies too!

THIS RECIPE IS:

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Boring version of recipe instructions:

Trim fat and cut up chicken into chunks. Cook in wok until white on all sides in 1Tbsp of vegetable oil. Prepare vegetables and add to wok along with remaining oil. Add Szechuan sauce. Stir well. Add cooked rice and mix. Serve hot. Carrots will be firm.

Broiled Chicken with Oil, Lemon and Garlic Sauce

This recipe is really simple. You'll need to prepare it in advance since the chicken needs to be marinated, and - yes - it definitely makes a difference. My recipe is for two people, but feel free to double, triple, etc the recipe as needed.

You will need the following ingredients:

-2 chicken breasts
-Salt and pepper
-4 cloves crushed garlic
-1/4cup lemon juice
-3Tbsp olive oil
-1 Tbsp chopped parsley

Trim fat from chicken breasts and season with salt and pepper.

It usually takes me 1.5 lemons to get a quarter cup of juice, but I'm not very good at squeezing lemons. Also, I almost always use jarred garlic, no matter how the recipe says it should be cut up.

Mix together garlic, lemon juice, oil and parsley.

Coat chicken with the mixture and marinate at least one hour. If the mixture doesn't cover both sides of the chicken breasts, turn them halfway through marinating.

Broil the chicken breasts on high for 10 minutes, then flip them over and broil 10 minutes on the other side. Baste often! If you remember to baste, the chicken will have a really, really amazing flavour.


And that's it! I made white rice and steamed vegetables to go with and it was really, really delicious.

Enjoy!

THIS RECIPE IS:

~~~~

Boring version of recipe instructions:

Trim fat and season chicken with salt and pepper. Mix together garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and parsley. Coat chicken and marinate at least 1 hour. Broil on high 10 minutes on each side, basting often.

Herbed Chicken, or "Janet Chicken"

Herbed chicken - or "Janet chicken," after my childhood friend's mom who first introduced me to this recipe - is a super-delicious and super-simple recipe. You will need the following ingredients:


-1Tbsp veg oil
-1-1/2 cups sliced mushrooms
-1lb chicken breast
-1 garlic clove
-1/2tsp salt
-1/2tsp dried basil
-1/4tsp pepper
-2 cups chopped tomatoes
-1/2 cups chopped onions
-Pasta

So, you're going to want to start with cutting up your chicken breast into approximately 1-inch chunks. Making them exactly identical in size is not important as this dish can be cooked long enough so that all the pieces get sufficiently cooked.

Heat up your 1 Tablespoon of oil in a wok and cook the chicken until the outsides are white - don't cook it all the way through yet! Just until it looks something like this:




Next you'll want to rinse your produce, obviously. I mention that in this particular recipe because I believe it is the first recipe I have posted that uses mushrooms and mushrooms are tricky. When you buy mushrooms at the store, do not rinse them until you're just about ready to use them because they're extremely absorbent. Just rinse them lightly, check for dirt and pat them dry with a towel.

Rinse all your other produce the way you're used to doing it!

Okay, so next you'll want to chop up your mushrooms, tomatoes and onions. You can use a fresh clove of garlic if you want, but I find that to be such a nuisance that I much, much, much prefer to use the jarred kind.
Once your chicken looks like the above picture, add these vegetables to your wok and stir it up. As all of this is cooking, cook your pasta. The original recipe calls for 4 cups of cooked pasta, which is 8oz uncooked. In any case, I never measure because I just serve the mixture over the pasta rather than combining it all together.





Next, add the salt, basil and pepper. Mix the ingredients well. Cook all ingredients on a medium-ish temperature until it looks like this:

Before you decide your meal is ready, remove the largest piece of chicken you can find and ensure it is cooked all the way through. Once you have done that, you can either stir in the pasta or serve it over pasta.

Delicious!!

THIS RECIPE IS:

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Boring version of recipe instructions:

Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch chunks. Cook in oil until outside is white. Combine all ingredients with chicken and stir fry. Add pasta, or serve over pasta.

Waldorf Chicken Salad

This is a yummy salad adapted from "Salads" by Parragon Publishers. I have made a few changes, but it's essentially the same.

You will need the following ingredients:

-1lb 20z (500g) Gala apples, diced
-3Tbsp fresh lemon juice
-2/3 cup real mayonnaise
-1 head celery
-3/4 of a vidalia onion
-1-1/2 to 2 cloves garlic
-1lb 2oz (500g) cooked, cubed chicken
-pepper

This recipe is all about timing. There are two ways to do it: (1) The way that takes almost two hours or (2) The way that takes about 50 minutes.

Assuming the rest of you are like me (ie: you have a husband, a child to take care of, schoolwork to do, a house to [try to] keep tidy and - obviously - dinner to cook), I will present to you the strategic and concise way to do it!

You will want to start with dicing up your apples into approximately 1cm pieces, but don't get overwhelmed with the size. This is not a recipe of precision.

Squeeze out 3Tbsp of juice from a lemon (it took me one lemon) and scoop up 1Tbs of mayonnaise.

Add the apples, lemon juice and mayonnaise to a large bowl. Mix and set aside for 40 minutes. The mixture will look something like this:

So, now that you've set that aside, turn your attention to your chicken breasts. You will use 2-3 chicken breasts, depending on their size.

You can season the chicken breasts however you like. I just added a little olive oil (which I recommend doing so they don't dry out) and added a bit of salt and pepper. In the future, I will probably also use basil.

Pop the chicken breasts in the oven. It will take them about 40 minutes to cook through, so you can see how this timing really is very convenient.

Next thing you'll want to do is slice up your celery very thinly. The recipe calls for an entire head of celery and mine was pretty small, but it still made for a LOT of celery. If you think it's too much, that's just fine, the salad won't be ruined.

Slice up the vidalia onion into small rectangles (as pictured below) and once the apple mixture has been sitting for 40 minutes, add the celery, onion and garlic to the mix.

Once you have that all mixed up, add the rest of the mayonnaise (2/3cup - 1Tbsp) to the mix and stir it again.

Check on your chicken. It should have an internal temperature of at least 160°F (71°C), but I would recommend 170°F (76°C) and the official US government recommendation is 180°F (82°C). When you cut open the meat there should be no pink on the inside. This is not a steak, people. Do not cook your chicken to order. That's nasty.

For the finishing touch, cut your chicken up like so:

And then add it and mix it up with the rest of the ingredients and season with pepper (to taste) like so:
Et voilà! You have made a tasty chicken salad for your family to eat!

When we ate this I served it over a little bit of red lettuce. If you do this, I recommend serving it with garlic bread or adding a bit of seasoning or extra mayonnaise to it because it can get a little bland. You could also toast some bread and eat it as a sandwich. (My husband says the sandwich is better with the bread left untoasted. He is wrong)

Enjoy!

THIS RECIPE IS:

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Boring version of recipe instructions:

Place apples, lemon juice, 1Tbsp mayo in bowl. Set aside 40 minutes. Season chicken to liking and let cook until internal temperature is at least 160°F (71°C), preferably a bit higher. Slice celery very thinly and chop onion into thin rectangles. Add celery, onion, garlic to apples. Mix. Add remaining mayo. Stir. Add chicken. Stir.