The Andrew Extravaganza

As promised, I am posting that recipe for Orange Chicken. I did a search a few days ago to find a good recipe and I found this one. It's good, but I changed a few minor things so I'll go ahead and post what I did.

Ingredients

Sauce
1.5 Cups Water
0.25 Cups Orange Juice (I used fresh squeezed juice from two Valencia Oranges)
0.25 Cups Lemon Juice (I used a mix of half lemon, half lime because that's what I already had on hand)
3 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1 Tbsp Orange Zest, finely grated or minced
0.33 Cups Rice Vinegar
0.75 Cups Packed Brown Sugar
0.25 Tsp Ground Ginger
1 Clove Garlic, minced
The Whites of a bunch of Green Onions, chopped pretty small
4 Dried Arbol Peppers (the long reddish ones you find near the jalapeños in the produce section), minced

Thickening Muck
3-ish Tbsp Cornstarch
3-ish Tbsp Water

Chicken Related Stuff
2 to 3 Chicken Breasts, boned and skinned, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
0.75 Cups Flour
0.25 Cups Cornstarch (you can just use flour instead if you'd like)
Oil for frying
Green tops from a bunch of green onions

Directions

1. Pour into a saucepan 1 1/2 cups water, orange juice, lemon juice, rice vinegar, and soy sauce; cook over medium-high heat. Stir in orange zest, brown sugar, ginger, garlic, and chopped onion. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat, and let cool 10 to 15 minutes.

2. Place chicken pieces into a sealable bowl (or a resealable plastic bag if you prefer). When contents of saucepan have cooled, pour 1 cup of sauce into the bowl. 1 Cup was enough to just cover 3 chicken breasts worth of chunks. Reserve remaining sauce; I suggest just covering the saucepan and letting it sit in the fridge. Seal the bowl of chicken, and refrigerate at least 2 hours.

After the chicken marinading phase is complete:

3. In another resealable bowl (or bag) place the Chicken Related Stuff Flour and Cornstarch. You can proceed two ways from here: coat every piece of chicken and let them sit on a plate, or you can coat the chicken batchwise as you fry it. I like to do it all at once and get it over with.

4. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Place chicken in skillet, and brown on both sides. It won't take very long. Remove to paper towels, and cover with aluminum foil.

5. Put the saucepan of reserved sauce on the burner at medium heat; in fact do this during the chicken frying phase. Once it gets hot and nearing a boil add the Thickening Muck. The best way to handle the Thickening Muck is to add the cornstarch to a bowl then add the water; use your fingers to smash the cornstarch bits to get rid of any lumps. After a minute or two of boiling it's going to be as thick as it will get, so you might want to add a little more Thickening Muck if it's too thin.

6. Serve the fried chicken over white rice. Pour the sauce over the chicken and rice and throw down some chopped green onion tops.

marinating with a t? Good choice with the fresh squeezed juice. There is no substitute.

Marinading with a d is a perfectly acceptable transitive verb. Marinating with a t is more commonly used, but since you marinate in a marinade I've become fond of using marinading. It's hard to judge your tone in that comment, but I think it's safe to say a "Fuck Off" is in order.

How much soy sauce do you use?

Ah! Nice catch. I was in a hurry to add this entry before getting out of town for the weekend, looks like soy sauce got left out. I used 3 Tbsp and my entry is updated to reflect that.