Orange Chicken

Orange chicken is a dish made out of deep fried battered chicken pieces dressed with savoury sweet and sometimes spicy orange sauce. This dish has its Chinese roots which came from an original recipe from the Hunan province, while its predecessor was Chinese this dish is totally American. If we are to look closely at its recipe it closely resembles lemon chicken as well as General Tso’s chicken hence it is often found as a variation of both. The Orange chicken’s traditional recipe calls for dried orange or tangerine peel where it is well used in traditional Chinese medicine but due present recipes are simplified and fresh peel is often used nowadays.

Usually this dish tends to be super sweet, most of the recipes I had seen online calls for cups of sugar for my version we will use way much less of that but it will still have the same fresh sweet taste. A really nice dish to pair with freshly steamed rice and some stir fried or even blanched vegetables.

Orange Chicken

 

Save Print

Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

35 mins

 

Serves: 4

Ingredients

Chicken

• 500g boneless chicken thighs, cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 cup water
• ½ cup flour
• ¼ cup corn starch
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 egg
• salt
• oil for deep frying

Sauce

• 1 cup fresh orange juice
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 4 tsp Chinese rice wine
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp corn starch
• salt
• white pepper

Others

• 1 tbsp orange zest
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp ginger paste
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 2 stalk spring onions, sliced
• oil

Instructions

1. Combine all orange sauce together except salt and white pepper, set aside.
2. Mix together all chicken ingredients apart from chicken and oil. Once even in consistency place chicken meat into batter, set aside.
3. Heat up a wok with enough cooking oil for deep frying, once hot enough deep fry chicken pieces adding one piece at a time. Do not overcrowd, once they turn golden brown and crispy remove from wok then transfer into a plate lined with paper towels.
4. Prepare another wok, add oil then sauté garlic and ginger.
5. Add chilli powder, chicken and orange zest. Quickly stir fry then add the orange sauce mixture. Cook until sauce thickens.
6. Season with salt and white pepper, place in serving plates then garnish with spring onions. Serve.

3.2.2708