Convoluted Cooking with the Wombat

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so last night I came up with a pretty decent recipe that I hacked together from other recipes. (No I could not just follow the directions I found why the hell would I do that?) The dish in question is Orange Chicken, which I've gotten the hang of out of the bottle. The other night I decided to try my hand at making the sauce, and the result was pretty damned fine. In other words, worth sharing IMHO.

Obviously, you're going to start with Boneless Skinless Chicken. For the intents and purposes of this posting, we will say four pounds of it. Most recipes you find will say two pounds. I say fuck that noise. But then again I made enough for a family of five to eat their fill. Two of the five have run marathons. Two others of the five stand at over six feet three inches tall. The other one? yeah, he's a slacker, but I've made my point. Anyways, you want to have leftovers of this stuff. It keeps extremely well, and is good cold or reheated.

The chicken is to be cut into bite sized pieces. I leave it to anyone reading this, and moreover, anyone willing to take my word as to what makes for good food and would actually use it, to decide what that means

Break 2 Eggs into a large bowl. I use jumbo eggs, but I'm not entirely certain you'd be shooting yourself in the foot by using large. anything smaller than that though and I'd suggest using more. Beat them, hit them with some salt, white pepper (black pepper is forgivable), and sesame oil, mix with 1/2 cup flour and 1 cup Corn Starch. Coat the chicken with this mixture and pan fry in peanut oil (or failing that any cooking oil).

The process of coating the chicken is extremely nasty.

I'm Sorry.

but you haven't done that yet, because what you did first was make the sauce. In no particular order, 5 tablespoons Soy Sauce, 5 tablespoons cider vinegar, and 1/2 cup lemon juice are the constant liquid ingredients. I sort of deviated from any sort of logic with the rest. I could tell you that I added 3 1/4 cups of Orange Juice, but that's not what I did, because I didn't have any plain orange juice at hand. What I had were Tropicana Pinapple Orange, and Dole Orange Peach Mango. I also had some canned pineapple chunks (see below), and some clementines (also see below). I added 3 1/4 cups of a liquid that contained unmeasured amounts of the two juices, the juice from the clementines, and the syrup from the pineapple chunks. Orange juice, or any juice with orange as the base (excepting anything containing banana) can be used here. Pour all liquids in a saucepan and boil on medium high heat, adding to the mix some grated zest of orange (approx. 1 1/2 tablespoons is my recommendation. I actually used clemintines out of preference but if you have oranges use oranges), 1 teaspoon minced ginger root, 1 teaspoon minced garlic, and a small amount of red pepper flakes. Boil that stuff up for a while before adding 3/4 cup packed brown sugar, and after a short while later a paste made up of 6 tablespoons cornstarch and 1/4 cup water or fruit juice (pref. pineapple or orange, but not to be confused with syrup from canned pineapple).

You may notice that the ingredients exceed the capacity of a single fry pan. When I cook this the kitchen becomes overwhelmed with pots and pans and implements of destruction, with all four burners occupied and any vegetable side dish doomed to reside in the microwave or wait until my machinations are complete. A saner person than I might use a single pan and do things in installments. In any case, each pan should receive a modest coating of whatever cooking oil you've been using, minced garlic, and minced ginger. Stir fry this until the aroma starts doing its thing, and then add some chopped green onions to the mix. not a hell of a lot, just enough to get a flavor going. continue this for a minute or so, then hit it with the sauce and let it simmer before adding the chicken. At this point I also add pineapple chunks and Clementine slices (mandarin oranges also work), and from time to time, cashews. Stir fry this mixture until the chicken is well coated.

The next time I cook this up I'm going to have the sauce done ahead of time to save trouble. It's alright when I'm alone to just jump into it all but when there are onlookers asking why exactly I haven't cooked the chicken yet it's better to simply avoid the whole mess. Of course it's likely more convenient as well.

Fuck. Now I'm hungry and the leftovers are gone.

More writings of matters not concerning food will appear here in not too long. If any among you finds any of this the least bit interesting I'll make this a feature. Not a regular feature, mind, but more of a "whenever I manage to pull something off with my own stamp" basis.