Orange Chicken

"Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love."
Craig Claiborne

I vividly remeber when i started enjoy cooking, i was about 8 years old. Well, not really cooking, :P; just enjoying being in the kitchen with my mom. My mom cooks like a chef especially the traditional Malaysian cuisine. She cooks, bakes and serve everything almost perfectly. My favourite part was the baking time. For an 8 years old kid, helping her mother baking a cake was a real fun but for the mother it might turn to be the most horrifying experience of the day. Instead of beating the eggs or fold in the flour, i prefer smudging the butter cream and licking any chocolate mixture that i could reach. As i could remember, by 11 or 12 i already started making my own chocolate cake with her supervision and my cake tak bantat occay... agak terror jugerrrr.. huahuahua...

My passion in cooking never dies and nowadays in my adulthood i cook more and more and continously trying new recipes for the variety. Recently, i tried this 'Asian Orange Chicken', which i got from the internet (credit to Ejah). As usual, i just used whatever ingredients available. Some people thought cooking is troublesome because there's too many things need to be prepared and bought, but for me i just throw in anything that i have at the moment. You just need to mix and match to bring out the flavour. My first attempt for the orange chicken was a success. My hubby loves it very much that he requested more orange chicken later. Huehuheuhe..

This is the Orange Chicken i made.. almost similar to Lemon Chicken but i prefer orange better.

Owhh.. and yesss.. i do garnish my dishes occasionally for our dining pleasure. Akaka :D.

Sauce:

Step A

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 2 tablespoons orange juice (i used Sunquick)
  
• 1/4 cup lemon juice (N/A)
  
• 1/3 cup rice vinegar (i used plain vinegar)
  
• 2 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon grated orange zest
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon minced fresh ginger root
• 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons chopped green onion (replaced with red onion)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (N/A)
  

Step B

• 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons water

Chicken

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (i used flour + all purpose spice-yang buat ayam berempah tu. Klu takde add in rempah kari pun ok)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 3 tablespoons olive oil (replaced with butter)
  

My extra ingredients :

• 1 tablespoon sesseme oil
• Crushed cornflakes
• 1 white egss
  

How to make it:

For the sauce, just pour in all the liquids in the saucepan at medium heat. Add in the remaining sauce ingredients and bring it to boil. Cool the sauce for about 1/2 hour.

Marinate the chicken with 1 cup of the sauce and refrigerate it for 2 hours or more. In addition, i add in a sesseme oil about 1 tablespoon. This gave a nutty flavour to the chicken. Reserve the remaining sauce.

Then, placed the marinated chicken in a close container which has the mixture of flour, spice, pepper, salt and butter. Shake well the container until the chicken are evenly coated.

I added one more step before deep frying. I dipped the coated chicken in white eggs and rolled it on crushed cornflakes. So it has 2 coatings and believe me it tastes crunchier *drooollinggg*.

Deep fried the chicken. In deep fry techniques u need to make sure the oil fully covered the chicken or your chicken will not cook evenly and the coating will crack due to temperature gradient.

Before serving, bring to boil the reserved sauce and add in the cornstarch paste to thicken the sauce. If you prefer a thicker sauce add another tablespoon of cornstarch and vice versa.

Transfer chicken to the serving platter and pour on the sauce. Garnish with some orange slices and grated orange zest.



It is just a simple cooking yet taste heavenly. Happy cooking to all !!