Orange Chicken

Orange chicken is a favorite in this house.

It's always the order of choice when we make that occasional trip to Panda Express.

But I can only begin to imagine the amount of salt, sugar, and fat we are ingesting with each serving.

So I've come up with a recipe for making it at home.

It's the best of both worlds.

I satisfy our craving while I control the salt, sugar, and fat content. And I don't spend a fortune either.

Orange Chicken
Cut chicken tenders into bite size pieces. I use my kitchen shears. Season with salt and pepper and coat with flour. Fry in peanut oil until done. Drain on paper towels. Then to the oil add 3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped. Cook until right before the garlic starts to brown. Next add 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar and 3 tablespoons of ornage juice. Cook until thick and bubbly. It won't take long. Then add the chicken back in and top with chopped green onions.

I use about 1/4 of peanut oil for the frying and then I pour most of it out before I add the garlic. You will find quite the residue of flour at the bottom, that's okay, that's what will thicken the sauce.

When I've made this dish before I thought it should be saucier so tonight I doubled the sauce part of the recipe. Now normally this creates a dish with a bright, orangie flavor, but tonight it was a bit strong on the vinegar. You would think that if you doubled all the ingredients equally that it would come out the same. But I think I'm going to have to revisit this recipe in a week or so and try a little less vinegar and a little more orange juice. I'll be sure to let you know how it comes out.