Orange-Ginger-Sesame Chicken

Cook time:40 min

Description

This recipe was my attempt at replicating the sort of orange sesame chicken that I've eaten from American Chinese restaurants. I formulated the recipe by reading the lists of ingredients on all of the bottles of duck sauce in the supermarket I was in at the time and basing it on the common elements.

Ingredients

• two or three chicken breasts cut into "chicken tender" sized pieces
• half a lemon
• an orange
• half a peach
• half an apricot
• one (1) teaspoon minced garlic
• two (2) teaspoons soy sauce
• two (2) teaspoons ginger paste
• two (2) teaspoons cider vinegar
• one half (½) of a cup of brown sugar
• a small handful of sesame seeds

Directions

1. Peel the fruit and cut it into slices, removing any seeds from the lemon and orange
2. Using a blender, purée the fruit. You may wish to add more fruit and use the extra purée to make fruit smoothies. If you do not have a blender these fruits can often be bought puréed as baby food.
3. Pour off excess purée and discard or save, leaving approximately one cup of liquid in the blender
4. Add the minced garlic, soy sauce, ginger paste, cider vinegar, and brown sugar to the blender and mix until evenly combined
5. Using a knife, score the surfaces of the chicken pieces to increase their surface area
6. Coat the bottom of a small dish or pan with oil. I used a bread pan.
7. Place the chicken in the pan and pour half of the purée mixture over the chicken. Turn the chicken pieces over repeatedly by hand until they are thoroughly coated with the purée mixture. Bake covered at 425°F for twenty minutes.
8. Take the pan out of the oven and drain off any juice or water that has accumulated. Pour the remaining purée mixture over the chicken pieces, turn them to coat evenly, and bake uncovered for ten more minutes.
9. Take the pan out of the oven again. At this point the sauce should have thickened considerably. Sprinkle the sesame seeds over the chicken pieces and turn them to coat evenly, then bake uncovered for another ten minutes.
10. After a total of forty minutes baking in the above steps, the dish should be finished and ready to serve.

See Also

• Orange-Ginger-Sesame Tofu, a vegetarian version