If your family is a fan of Chinese food, chances are you’ve ordered a dish called Orange Chicken. There are so many variations of this dish that most people’s culinary experience eating it really depends on each person’s palate. Sometimes the dish will have a strong soy sauce flavor to it. Other times Orange Chicken will be sweet and tangy, almost like a sweet and sour dish. However, this dish can be easily re-created in your home kitchen based on how you like it.
Using ginger, garlic, soy sauce, rice vinegar, orange zest and juice, and oyster sauce as a base, you can adjust this sauce to your liking. Whenever I’m cooking stir-fry, I like to make the sauce first. Generally speaking, I always recommend to people when making a stir-fry sauce to taste as you go, tweaking it until you’re happy with it.
Sauce:
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- 2 large cloves garlic
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- optional sweetener like sugar, honey, agave, etc.
- 1 teaspoon minced ginger
Stir-fry:
- salt and pepper
- 3 tablespoons corn starch
- 1 pound chicken tender cut into cubes
- olive oil
- 1/2 cup medium yellow onion, chopped
- 4 cups chopped vegetables such as broccoli, carrots, celery, mushroom, snap peas, etc.
Directions:
- Blend all the ingredients for the sauce in a blender or food processor for 10 seconds.
- Taste the sauce and add your choice of sweetener to your liking.
- Blend again for a few more seconds.
- Heat the sauce in a large skillet on medium-high heat for 5 minutes. Carefully transfer the sauce to a heat proof bowl.
- Rinse the skillet clean.
- Season the chicken with salt and pepper.
- Add the corn starch and massage the chicken with your hands.
- If using fresh broccoli or green beans, boil the broccoli for 3-5 minutes until soft enough to pierce with a fork yet firm.
- Transfer the vegetables to a plate lined with a paper towel.
- Wipe down the skillet until dry.
- Heat approximately 1 tablespoon of oil in the skillet on medium-high heat.
- Cook the onion and chicken until the chicken is cooked through, approximately 3-4 minutes.
- Add the remaining vegetables and stir-fry them together for 2 minutes.
- Slowly add a few tablespoons of sauce while stirring the vegetables and chicken.
- Continue to add the sauce a few tablespoons at a time, allowing about 15 seconds between each addition to allow sauce to slightly cook down.
- Spoon the stir-fry over a bowl of hot rice. Serve immediately.