Orange Chicken
This is one of those Asian dishes that probably isn’t authentic or even originally Asian…but even still, we’ve all devoured take-out versions of this dish before and relished every last bite. Now some of you might wonder, why on earth would you go to the trouble trying to recreate something you could easily get via takeout? Well, then you wouldn’t have eaten some of the awful food near where I live, lol! Even if your options are better than mine, its also kind of fun–trying to recreate something you enjoy and making it a whole lot better. Plus, you can skip the stuff you don’t like (I never enjoyed all the broccoli this is normally served with…yea, I’m gonna be a great dad! lol). Anyways, whatever your reason, back to the food: Orange Chicken!
I’ve been enjoying over-indulging in oranges (winter is citrus season in Florida), so it seemed like a happy coincidence when I saw the original inspiration for this recipe over at Lauren’s Kitchen Endeavours (go check her out!).
So how’d it come out? Much better than take out and it tasted delicious–the familiar orange chicken flavor at the core with a great hit of extra spice and heat. The sauce came out a little on the thick side, but with a little bit of tossing the chicken around in the sauce, the problem was solved.
- ~2 lbs chicken thighs
- Batter
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup water
- 1.5 Tbsp cornstarch
- ~2/3 Tbsp baking powder
- salt
- pepper
- 1 egg
- Sauce
- 1 star anise
- 3 whole cloves
- 1 shallot
- 8 cloves garlic
- 1-2 inch knob ginger
- 2 habaneros
- 3 dried chilis
- 1/2 cup freshly-squeezed orange juice
- zest of 1 orange
- 1/3 cup chicken broth
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce (to taste)
- 1/3 cup rice wine
- 1/3 cup rice vinegar
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 Tbsp hoisin
- 1 Tbsp oyster sauce
- 2 tsp corn starch
Begin by preparing the batter. Simply mix all of the ingredients in a bowl until homogenous. In a sturdy pot, heat up a good bit of vegetable (or canola) oil over medium high heat for ~5-10 minutes.
While you wait, cut up the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Coat with batter, and working in batches so as to prevent crowding (which would also drop the oil temperature), deep fry the chicken pieces until crisp and golden all over (figure ~10+ minutes per batch), flipping as necessary. Remove from the oil and let drain.
With the chicken fried, on to the sauce. Begin by frying the whole spices and dried chilis in the oil for a minute or two. Then sauté the finely minced shallot and habaneros for 5 minutes before adding the finely minced garlic and ginger for a minute further.
Add all of the remaining ingredients short of the cornstarch, deglazing if necessary. Simmer and reduce to your liking (no more than 5 minutes) before bearing in some cornstarch to thicken the sauce.
With the sauce ready, toss the chicken in and coat all the pieces well with sauce before plating (plus, it’s a chance for you to rewarm the chicken). I garnished the finished chicken with a few sesame seeds and snipped scallions.
Enjoy!
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