Recipe: Orange Chicken

As all of us are at home all of the time, either getting “cabin fever’ pacing up and down, the telly no longer charms, gardening is out of the question as you live in a flat and reading gets tedious, how about getting into the kitchen and whip up some delectables (we hope they will be!!) which are readily available and which most of my dear readers can purchase, even under the current MCO.

Preparing food and cooking is known to be a calming activity, engaging the mind as well as the body. And as cooking for the family is all that is asked for during this stressful period, I will be posting recipes here on a daily basis for you to experiment with during the days ahead.

I cajoled my dear friend Margarita Lee (Ipohite) who currently lives in Sydney and who used to contribute recipes in these pages in the early days of Ipoh Echo, to ferret in her voluminous log of recipes and share some with us. Here is one of her easy recipes:

Orange Chicken

by Margarita Lee

Ingredients A: 

• 4 Boneless, skinless chicken thighs 
• 1 Egg
• 1 tbsp Oyster sauce
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1/4 tsp Pepper 
• 1/2 tbsp Custard powder
• 3 tbsp Plain flour
• 3 tbsp Cornstarch 
• Oil for frying

Ingredients B: 

• 1 cup Orange juice from 1-2 oranges
• 1/2 tbsp Sugar
• 2 tbsp Lemon juice 
• 1 tsp Ginger juice 
• 1/2 tbsp Garlic, finely diced
• 1/2 tbsp Corn flour 

Garnish:

• Orange zest

Method: 

1. Cut chicken thighs into bite-sized pieces.
2. Marinate boneless chicken with oyster sauce, salt and pepper. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Remove chicken from fridge. Add in an egg and mix well. 
4. Combine the plain flour, custard flour and corn flour together in a bowl and mix well. Coat the chicken pieces in the flour mixture.
5. Heat oil in the wok. Deep fry chicken pieces until golden brown or until cooked (approx 8 minutes).
6. Remove chicken pieces but reserve some oil from the wok. 
7. Combine Ingredients B in a bowl and stir vigorously until thickened. Coat the fried chicken in the sauce and stir-fry together with the reserved oil. 
8. Transfer onto a serving plate and garnish with orange zest. Enjoy!