Food Friday

This week's Featured in Food Friday player is...

Ms. Peachkins, who blogs over at The Peach Kitchen, with her blog post: St. Dalfour Fruit Conserves and a BIG Breakfast.

We all know that it is important to eat breakfast. Whether it' be a hearty breakfast  or a light one, what's important is that we get the energy we need to help us kickstart our day! The breakfast featured in Ms. Peachkin's post is definitely one that my family would absolutely LOVE! Most of us would want, if given the chance, lol. There are other yummy treats posted at The Peach Kitchen, so why don't we head on over there and check them out!

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The main ingredients for this week's dish is something that I almost always have around the house, but this is the first time that I got to cook them together: chicken and oranges. Yup, this week we had Orange Chicken. :)

This is the recipe that I followed: Asian Orange Chicken (click here to go to the site), with loads of "revisions" on my part. :D

Ingredients

• Sauce:
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 2 tablespoons orange juice
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/3 cup rice vinegar
• 2 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon grated orange zest
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon minced fresh ginger root
• 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons chopped green onion
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
•  
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons water
•  
• Chicken:
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 3 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

1. Pour 1 1/2 cups water, orange juice, lemon juice, rice vinegar, and soy sauce into a saucepan and set over medium-high heat. Stir in the orange zest, brown sugar, ginger, garlic, chopped onion, and red pepper flakes. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat, and cool 10 to 15 minutes.
2. Place the chicken pieces into a resealable plastic bag. When contents of saucepan have cooled, pour 1 cup of sauce into bag. Reserve the remaining sauce. Seal the bag, and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
3. In another resealable plastic bag, mix the flour, salt, and pepper. Add the marinated chicken pieces, seal the bag, and shake to coat.
4. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Place chicken into the skillet, and brown on both sides. Drain on a plate lined with paper towels, and cover with aluminum foil.
5. Wipe out the skillet, and add the sauce. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Mix together the cornstarch and 2 tablespoons water; stir into the sauce. Reduce heat to medium low, add the chicken pieces, and simmer, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

**Obviously, I didn't use chicken breasts and instead of coating them in flour and frying them, I cooked them first in the marinade (I wanted to be sure that my chickens were cooked through) for about 30minutes before the frying process. I reduced the remaining liquid a bit then added the cornstarch and water mixture to thicken it. Drizzled the finished sauce on to the fried chicken.

**I also used 1/2 cup orange juice (instead of 2tbsp) and 1/4 cup calamansi juice (instead of lemon).

I was surprised that it did taste like it was supposed to; yes, I was expecting the recipe to be a failure but I was happy that I was wrong! lol. Even my sons liked it. :)

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