Orange Chicken Stir Fry

For today's recipe, I wanted to continue off from last week and challenge myself by attempting another foreign cuisine. I also wanted to go with another easy "wow" at the table. This whole recipe is prep work - nothing to it. It has a lot of ingredients, so people automatically think its a tricky recipe (this common misconception is a chef's best friend - use it). 


Choosing this dish has been something I've wanted to tackle for a while, but quite honestly didn't think that I could pull it off. I mean, the Asian food in the mall food court is SO good - how am I supposed to compete with that? Well turns out that I did! My mom actually said "wow - this tastes like take-out". Now if that isn't a testimonial for this recipe, I don't know what is!


I was also a little nervous about this recipe because it uses A LOT of veggies. Now, I'll be the first one to say that I don't have the most adult taste pallet. Most things green are not in my daily rotation. But, with a big kid job should come big kid meals, so I'm willing to try and grow up a bit.


Veggies

As you can see, freshness is not in short supply today. You can pretty much use any veggies that you like for this stir-fry. I used the basics, but then added a few things of my own.


1 1/2 Red Peppers
3 Cups Snap Peas
1 Broccoli Stalk
5 Cups Carrots
1 1/2 Cups Green Beans
4 Green Onions

You gotta admit - that bowl looks pretty good, and I don't even like half of the things in it! After chopping all of the different veggies, I put them in a large bowl and mixed them around. I will say, for the proportions in the rest of this recipe, I had more than enough veggies. You could probably cut down on each of them, or eliminate something you don't like. I have a little baggie for snacking with lunch later this week.


Sauce

Set that bowl aside and grab another for the sauce. **Disclaimer** While making this, you might be a little worried because honestly, it sounds a little gross. Don't worry though - give it a taste while mixing, it's yummy!


2 Cups Orange Juice
1 Zested Orange
1/2 Cup Soy Sauce
3 Cloves Garlic
2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
Dash of Salt


For this sauce, all you need to do is take all of the ingredients and add each to a large mixing bowl. When mixing dry and wet ingredients, you have to make sure that you mix it well. The brown sugar may tend to clump, so make sure to pay attention there. After adding all the ingredients, go ahead and give it a taste. I thought it might be good to have the sauce on the sweeter side, so I added another dash of brown sugar at the end :)


Rice


I toyed with the idea of not even writing anything for rice, because if you need my blog to cook rice, I think we have bigger problems than learning the basics of cooking. I used brown whole wheat rice, and followed the directions on the bag. It's pretty easy because you can just let it sit on the stove and do it's thing. I will say it takes about 30-40 minutes so this should be the first thing you do!


Chicken

Now that you've down all the prep work, you're basically done. I'd say once you start the actual cooking of the chicken you only have 10 more minutes to go. I took three chicken breasts and cut them into 1/4 inch cubes. Meanwhile, I had some vegetable oil warming in a skillet. Once the chicken was cut, I dropped it in the pan. I wanted the chicken to sear a bit and gain some color, so I left it in there a while. The chicken was done in about 5 minutes, but I really wanted that color.


When you've reached the desired tenderness of the chicken, it's time to add the sauce. I added about 3/4 of the mixture, and saved some to top it off with later. Make sure to leave the stove on and let the sauce start to boil. Once it does this, turn down the heat and sprinkle in about 2 tablespoons of flour. This helps the sauce thicken (and it really works)!

Now that the chicken is in the sauce, all that's left is to add the veggies. I just dumped the bowl into the same pan as the chicken and stirred (haha stir fry) it really well. I wanted the vegetables to still be a little crunchy, so I only cooked them for about 3 minutes. I also added the last 1/4 of the sauce on top at this point.

Now just grab a plate, put on some of the rice and then spoon in the stir fry!

YUM! Doesn't that look good? I may be tooting my own horn here, but you gotta admit that looks good :). For someone that doesn't even eat veggies, my plate was even clean. And this was SO easy. It really is all prep-work. The actual cooking only takes about 10 minutes. This means you could make a lot of this the night before, and start cooking once your friends come over. This way you don't have to spend all afternoon in the kitchen.


So there you have it - another successful week in the kitchen! I'd say that this recipe jumps right up to one of my favorites. So good, and so easy. Let me know what you think!


Until next time ...  happy cooking!!