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Showing posts with label orange. Show all posts

Orange Peel Chicken

Monday, March 31, 2014

This orange peel chicken recipe is taken from the cookbook written in Chinese "Standard recipes for Sichuan dishes". I like the orange peel flavor in this dish and how the orange flavor is blended with sweet and spicy flavor. The chicken comes out very tender also. This dish can be served either hot or cold.

Serves 2

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:
Marinate:
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of Chinese cooking wine or medium dried sherry
1 inch ginger, sliced
2 green onions, cut into 4 inch long sections, white part crushed
1 teaspoon of soy sauce
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1 pound of boneless chicken, cut into 1 inch cubes

Sauce:
2 teaspoon Chinese cooking wine or dried sherry
2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon soy sauce 1 teaspoon sugar
4 cup chicken broth
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1 teaspoon Chinese black vinegar or wine vinegar 1 tablespoon sesame oil

Other:
15 whole Sichuan peppercorn optional
5 dried orange peel, cut into 2 inch squares or zest from 1 medium sized orange
6 whole dried chili, seed taken out, cut into 1/2 inch wide strips or 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 inch ginger, sliced
4 cloves of garlic, sliced
4 green onion, cut into 2-inch length
1 cup peanut oil

Instruction:

Mix the marinate in a medium sized bowl then add the chicken cubes, marinate for 15 minutes
Meanwhile, prepare the other ingredients and sauces
When marinate is done, heat peanut oil in the wok till pretty hot but not smoking, put in the chicken cubes and fry till chicken pieces turns golden, use a mesh to scope out the chicken
Leave 1 tablespoon of the oil in the wok, put in Sichuan peppercorn if using and stir fry until the flavor comes out, discard the peppercorn. Put in the orange peel and dried pepper, cook until the oil turns red. Then add in ginger, green onion, and garlic, stir fry for a bit, then add in chicken, put in the sauces,cooking wine, salt, soy sauce, sugar and chicken broth, make sure the chicken broth will cover all the chicken pieces, use medium low heat to cook until all the sauces are evaporated and becomes thick, then add in vinegar and sesame oil
Transfer to a plate and serve either hot or let it completely cool and serves it cold

Plum and Orange Oat Crumble

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

This is dessert from last Sunday, I was just too busy this week to blog it. As usual it started out as a different recipe, Peach and Orange Oat Crumble, but they had plums on special offer in Tesco and I wouldnt buy peaches just now anyway. The combination of the plums and orange was really nice. I still have half the crumble mix left in a jar in the fridge for another crumble.

Plum and Orange Oat Crumble

8 plums

1 tsp ground cinnamon

3 tbsp caster sugar

50g wholemeal flour

2 oranges

25g jumbo oats

1 tbsp Demerara sugar

25g butter or margarine

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6

2. Cut the plums in half, remove the stones, and cut in quarters. Place in an ovenproof dish. Scatter the cinnamon and caster sugar over the top.

3. Zest the oranges on a fine grater into the bowl then, using a serrated knife, cut away the peel and segment the orange over the plums.

4. Put the flour and oats into a bowl, rub in the butter or margarine, mix in the Demerara sugar, then pile the crumble on top of the fruits.

5. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown on top. Serve hot with low-fat custard or virtually fat free fromage frais.

Spicy Orange Zest Beef – It Is What It Is

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

As I mentioned in the intro, this orange zest beef recipe is not supposed to be Chinese food, or even Americanized Chinese take-out food. Of course, since it’s obviously inspired by those day-glow orange, deep-fried beef nuggets (which may or may not be actual beef), comparisons are inevitable.

While I have no delusions that those crunchy bits would be preferable to most people, especially ones that just stumbled out of a Phish concert, this much-lower-fat alternative is still a quick, easy and perfectly delicious meal.

You’ll want to use a tender beef for this, since the cooking time is only 4-5 minutes. Cheaper cuts like chuck are going to be too tough, unless, of course, you pound it paper-thin, or use some kind of tenderizer. I used sirloin, which worked fine, but ideally you’ll find yourself some beef tenderloin trimmings.

Here’s another instance where you are much better off going to talk to a butcher, rather than a clerk at the supermarket. A real butcher will sell you the scraps produced when a whole tenderloin is trimmed. The meat is cut from something called the “chain” (be sure to use that word to impress the butcher), which is super-tender, and probably half the price.

One last tip: Be sure the beef is VERY well drained before it hits the hot pan. If your meat is wet, it will just boil and steam, and won’t work as well. Of course, if beef isn’t your thing, this will also work with chicken, pork, and…[gulp]…textured vegetable protein. I hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 lb tender beef, ideally trimmed tenderloin scraps

vegetable oil spray, as needed

1/4 cup orange juice

1/4 cup rice vinegar

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp Sambal hot chili sauce

2 cloves minced garlic

1 tbsp brown sugar, or to taste

2 tbsp orange zest

1 bunch green onions

1/4 cup water

1 tsp corn starch

salt and pepper to taste, optional

white rice as needed

View the complete recipe