Crispy takeout style orange chicken at home can be yours. No wok required!
MARINADE
- 1lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, large diced
- 30g or 2Tbsp soy sauce
- 30g or 2Tbsp mirin
- 3g or 1tsp corn starch
- 4g or 1tsp baking soda
INSTRUCTIONS
- Cut chicken breasts into a large bite-sized dice.
- In a bowl, whisk together soy, mirin, corn starch, and baking soda. Add chicken chunks and stir to coat. Marinate for 20 minutes.
BREADING AND FRYING
- 400g or 3 1/3c ap flour
- 15g or 2 1/4tsp salt
- 6g or 1 1/4tsp baking soda
- 400g or 3 1/4c corn starch
- Water
- Additional ap flour (about 3/350g cups)
- Neutral oil. I’m using a bout 2qt. Oil should be around 2”/5cm deep
INSTRUCTIONS
- Into a 2nd bowl, whisk together 400g ap flour, salt, baking soda and corn starch. In a 3rd bowl, add about ¼ of the dry breading mixture. To that small portion of dry breader, whisk in water, a little at a time, until you’re left with a loose pancake batter texture.
- Back in bowl 2 (with dry breading only), add about 1/4c of the wet breading slurry you just made. Mix and crumble the wet into the dry, creating a dry crumbly texture.
- Grab a 4th bowl and fill it with about 3 cups of AP flour. Add marinated chicken pieces. Mix to coat well on all sides.
- Shake off as much of the ap flour mixture from the chicken as possible, then add chicken into the wet batter in bowl 3. Toss to coat well.
- Now move pieces of wet battered chicken into the craggy dry breader mix (bowl 2). Mix to coat well. Transfer chicken pieces to a tray.
- Preheat large heavy bottomed pot over medium-high heat with about 2qt of neutral oil (or about 2-3”/5-8cm of oil, leaving plenty of room at the top of your pot so oil doesn’t boil over when you add chicken) for 10 min or until oil reaches a temp of 300F/150C. Gently lower breaded chicken into the oil (use a spider to avoid splashing oil). Fry 4-5 min at 300F/150C.
- After 4-5 min or when nuggets are a light blonde golden color, remove from oil and transfer to a wire rack to drain.
- Increase heat under oil pot to medium high to increase oil temp to 350F/175C. Carefully lower once-cooked nuggets back into the oil to cook for about another 90 seconds or until they’ve taken on a nice golden brown color. Transfer onto a wire rack and keep warm in a low oven while you make your orange chicken sauce.
ORANGE CHICKEN SAUCE
- 30g or 2Tbsp neutral, high smoke point oil
- 10g or 2 cloves garlic, grated
- 10g or about a 1.5” piece ginger, grated
- 20g or 4Tbsp scallions, thinly sliced (only about bottom half/2/3 of scallions)
- 125g or 1/2c chicken stock
- 75g or 1/4c mirin
- 50g or 3Tbsp soy sauce
- 10g or 2tsp sesame oil
- 50g or 1/4c sugar
- 25g or 1.5Tbsp rice vinegar
- Juice of 1 large orange
- 1tsp orange zest (about 8-10 healthy zests)
- 5g or 2tsp corn starch
- Pinch Chile flake
- Corn starch slurry if needed (2g or 3/4tsp corn starch mixed into 4g water)
INSTRUCTIONS
- To make the sauce, heat a generous squeeze of neutral oil in a large nonstick pan over medium high heat. Add ginger, garlic, and scallions and cook, stirring often, for about a minute until fragrant.
- Whisk together chicken stock, mirin, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, rice vin, orange zest and juice and corn starch. Add sauce to pan with ginger/garlic/scallion mixture along with a pinch of chile flakes. Bring to a simmer and reduce sauce by about half - about 2 minutes. Check consistency of sauce at this point. If it’s not thick enough to leave a trail when you run a spoon through it, stir in a splash of corn starch slurry. Bring back to a boil and check consistency again.
- Add cooked nuggets into pan with sauce. Gently toss to coat, careful not to over work to loosen the breading.
- Serve over rice and top with a pinch of sesame seeds and chile flakes.
CHAPTERS
- 0:00 Intro
- 0:10 Prepping the chicken
- 1:10 Mixing the breading/dredge
- 2:27 Breading the chicken
- 4:03 I really love cereal (ad)
- 5:01 Frying chicken nuggets
- 6:47 Making orange chicken sauce
- 8:37 Finishing the dish and plate up
- 9:30 Let’s eat this thing
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