Chinese dishes are increasingly gaining popularity in the western world. Among Americans’ favorite Chinese dishes is orange chicken. It is nutritious and an excellent choice for saving you from the lunch blues when you are not sure of what you want to eat.

If you are a fan of Chinese food, you must have heard about Panda Express. Panda express is the largest Chinese restaurant in the US. The restaurant has branches in 50 states of the US, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Guam and Puerto Rico. Panda express makes its orange chicken by using chopped battered chicken. This chicken is then coated in a chili sauce with an orange flavor. This sauce is responsible for thickening the meal and giving it the caramel glaze.

Sauce for Orange Chicken

Our Chinese orange chicken replaces this sauce, a chemical product, with fresh orange/lemon. The citrus flavor used in Chinese restaurants has some amount of industrially prepared red 21 food dye. It cannot beat our naturally acquired zest which has more oils and better flavor. Chinese orange chicken is more nutritious than red meat if you are looking out for your health too.

If you are new in this, you must be wondering how Chinese orange chicken tastes. First of all, it should have that citrus flavor; that’s the very reason it is called orange chicken. If available, the orange flower water may be used in place of orange peeling. Bitter orange blossoms are used to provide the orange essence. Either way, the essence is more natural than the sauce.

Yum! Asian Orange Chicken

Chinese chicken orange must be delicious. It’s a chicken; nobody messes with a chicken meal. The Chinese orange chicken is flavored with other secret spices and herbs including Chinese cooking wines. The chicken has complicated, yet very delicious flavors. It definitely isn’t boneless. Chinese orange chicken believes that the bone and the skin make a lot of the good stuff. Without the skin, you wouldn’t enjoy that crispy crunchy goodness. Oh, and the skin fat is good very tasty too. What with the glazing appearance and the aroma, Chinese orange chicken is a must try food. Chinese orange chicken avoids a lot of man-made food chemicals.

Orange Chicken Recipe

Now that all your appetite is up let’s calm those digestive juices. Chinese orange chicken recipe is not complicated. It is as follows:

Ingredients

For the Sauce:
1.5 cups of water
A third cup of rice vinegar
A half teaspoon minced garlic
Two tablespoons of orange juice
2.5 tablespoons of soy sauce
A quarter cup of lemon juice
Two tablespoons of water
Two tablespoons chopped onions (green)
One tablespoon grated orange zest
Three tablespoons cornstarch
A half teaspoon fresh minced ginger root
A cup of brown sugar
A quarter teaspoon red pepper flakes

For the Orange Chicken:

Three tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Two chicken breasts should be boneless and skinless, and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
A resealable bag and aluminum foil.

Directions

Into your saucepan, pour the following: rice vinegar, one and a half cups of water, lemon juice, the soy sauce and orange juice. Set them on medium-high heat. Note that these are the liquid ingredients. Take the dry ingredients; red pepper flakes, orange zest, brown sugar, chopped onion, ginger and garlic, and stir them in the liquid mixture. Allow this new mixture to boil. Put them to cool for around 15 minutes.

After cooling, pour a cup of the mixture into the chicken pieces in the resealable bag. Seal it, then put the marinated chicken into the fridge for the chicken to absorb the flavors, which should take at least 2 hours.

Mix the salt, pepper and flour. Take the marinated chicken and pour it into another resealable bag. Onto it, pour this mixture, and then shake thoroughly.

The olive oil over medium heat. Place it in a large bowl. Place the chicken in the heated olive oil and allow both sides to absorb it for browning reasons. Line some paper towels on a plate or tray onto which the chicken will drain. Use aluminum foil to cover it.

Wipe the bowl you have used with the olive oil, then add the sauce and boil it. Medium-high temperature for the sauce. Mix two tablespoons of water and the cornstarch, and then stir. Simmer the chicken in it over medium-low heat. Stir the mixture occasionally.

Be Creative with Chinese Orange Chicken

Like all other dishes, the Chinese orange chicken recipe can be altered for one’s experiments. In fact, Chinese folk claims that they haven’t seen this dish on their menu. Typically, this is because experiments done over and over by chefs gave birth to this meal. The origin of the idea is Chinese though; the sweet and sour taste. Reviews for this recipe are confident, and you must try it.

In the process, you can reduce the cornstarch to 2 tablespoons. Keep the chicken warm after frying, then splash some water onto it before pouring the sauce onto it. The sauce should be boiling at this stage, remember? Put the chicken on the tray, and then pour sauce on it. Note that if the chicken is too hot in sauce, the crispy coating will peel off and fall. Remember the crispiness is one of the greatest appetizing factors of this dish.

You can serve this dish with mashed potatoes, steamed or cooked rice. Other good additions include snow peas, carrots and broccoli for a healthy Chinese chicken dish. You will not need the duck sauce served in restaurants for this recipe because it already has enough of the sweet-sour flavor. There can never be a better way to experience the magic of China other than having a dish of the Chinese orange chicken.

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