Mandarin Orange Chicken

This is a recipe from one of my favorite Asian Cookbooks that I have posted about several times. It is called, Thai Cooking & More (Plus Chinese, Japanese & Korean). It has a ton of easy and super delicious recipes. I cut this recipe in half.












Let's gather some ingredients. Everyone asks about my pink knife and it is a Pure Komachi 2 Series 6-1/2-Inch Santoku Knife. I use it all the time and it is super light but also very sharp. Ok, lets talk about ingredients. You will need zucchini, red pepper, onion, crushed red pepper, mandarin oranges, garlic, corn starch, an orange, olive oil, soy sauce, orange juice, rice vinegar, green pepper, chicken and I think that is about it!




Chop up your garlic.




Peel your oranges, I use these Kuhn Rikon 3-Set Original Swiss Peeler, Red/Green/Yellow peelers. I am seriously loving this Amazon associates thing I set up for blogger that lets me link right to Amazon. I know the intent is for you to buy stuff and for me to get filthy rich, but really it is just an easy way for someone who is lazy to link to things that I talk about and show you.




Combine soy sauce, vinegar, oil, orange peel and garlic in a bowl.




Drop the chicken in and get it all mixed up. Pop it in the fridge for 15 minutes or however long it takes you to prep the rest of the ingredients.




So once the chicken is chilling and getting good, drain your mandarin oranges and save the juice the oranges were in.




Chop up the veggies.




Get the chicken out of the marinade and reserve it to make the sauce. Dump in the reserved juice from the oranges and enough OJ to make one cup of soon to be sauce.




Add in cornstarch and red pepper flake and mix it all up, set it aside for now.

Now we can finally cook!




Heat 1/2 tbs oil in a skillet or wok over high heat.




Toss in the chicken and stir fry for 2-3 minutes.




Get the chicken out of there!




Add in the onion and cook for one minute.




Add in the zucchini and cook for one minute. This is why having everything ready before is so important, once you start cooking you have to be able to move fast.




Add bell pepper and cook for a minute or so until they are crisp-tender.




Add in the marinade mixture and bring to a boil. Let that boil for one minute.




Add the chicken and cook just a minute or so more to bring it back up to temperature.




Add in the oranges and give it a quick stir and you are done. With all the ingredients it certainly looks like it would be a lot harder, but if you prep before you start to cook it is a simple dish.




Look how delicious it looks! I served it over some brown rice that I made in the microwave. This was super tasty and had lots of great veggies that can easily be substituted with what you like or what is in season as summer is coming!