Chicken with the tangy taste of orange? Not kidding…!!

It’s the COVID 19 period and a tough time. Cities are experiencing lockdown and movement restrictions. Kenya, like any other country experiences commuting restriction and limited movement.  All restaurants closed down, business area closed down, inter-city movement banned and especially no movement after 7 pm. Looks like life has come to a standstill. We are buying groceries and paying the vendors, who are door delivering. Thanks to this service. I brought a lot of oranges, as per the direction of some health experts. But, of course my kids were tired of eating them.

 One fine Sunday morning I thought, let’s make something different with these oranges instead of the boring way of eating them raw.  Thank God, we are privileged to the exposure of quick recipes, e- books and websites which I researched and came to a conclusion to satisfy our taste buds. The result was that I cooked ‘Orange chicken’, a never before dish which delivered justice to our taste buds as well as essential Vitamin C. Let me share the recipe with you my friends.

          

Tantalizing Orange chicken, a difference to the traditional one.

                         

Preparation time: 30 minutes        
Cooking -time: 20 minutes

Ingredients (for 3-4 persons):

1.      ½ inch ginger sliced

2.      4 cloves of garlic sliced

3.      2 medium sized onion chopped to small pieces

4.      2 medium sized green capsicum chopped to small pieces

5.      Juice squeezed from 5 medium sized fresh oranges

6.      2 table spoon lime juice

7.      1 table spoon balsamic vinegar

8.      800 gms chicken sliced to medium pieces ( you can even prefer boneless variety)

9.      1 egg battered

10.  1 table spoon white flour made to a paste

11.  1 teaspoon ginger garlic paste

12.  Red chillies sliced into pieces / red chilli flakes 1 ½ tablespoon

13.  Chopped cilantro for garnishing

14.  Salt

15.  2 tablespoons of tomato puree

16.  Orange food colour

17.  Oil to fry

18.  1 teaspoon of butter

19.  1 teaspoon of corn flour made to a paste

Preparation:

        Prepare the chicken

1.      Take the chicken pieces, marinate them with ginger-garlic paste, salt, and balsamic vinegar, egg and white flour paste.  Keep them marinated for 30 minutes.

       
Fry the vegetable

2.      Take a frying pan and add oil to it. Release the onion and capsicum to it, sauté for some time till it changes colour. Set aside.

Fry the chicken

3.      Add butter to the skillet and the release the marinated chicken.  Fry till the chicken becomes partly crispy. Remove them and keep aside.

      
  Prepare the sauce

4.      Now it’s time to prepare the sauce. Add oil in a skillet and after it heats up release the chopped ginger garlic, chilli flakes and toss for some time. Then take the mixture of orange juice, lime juice and tomato sauce and cook till they become a thick sauce. You can apply food colour so as to darken the colour and make it luscious. Add the corn flour paste to thicken the sauce.

How to serve?

5.      Now take a serving bowl and place the fried veggies to it. This layer id that of the onion, capsicum.

6.      Then place the chicken carefully.

7.      Now ladle the sauce over it carefully along the sides and see that the chicken completely covers up.

8.      Garnish with chopped cilantro and sliced oranges along the sides.

 The dish goes very well with steaming rice or tortilla bread.  Just an exceptional attempt from the traditional chicken. Definitely, the flavour of orange and chicken is tantalizing and some- thing different.