This is exactly what you think it is: Asian-style orange chicken, but served without the rice and instead fashioned into a scrummy salad. I air fried the chicken here, but you could just as easily get similar results (albeit with a bit more oil) with baking or pan-frying them.
Coat the chicken pieces (I like boneless thighs) with corn flour, salt, an egg, and some oil. Cook until it’s crispy around the edges.
In the meantime mix together the sauce ingredients: soy, vinegar, orange zest and juice, grated ginger and garlic, chilli flakes, and orange marmalade. I like the extra dimension of orange flavour you get from marmalade here, but replace it with sugar if you don’t have any on hand. This is proper weeknight cooking, so doesn’t make sense to leg it to the store (or do its digital equivalent of swiggy-ing) to buy any.
Heat up the sauce and toss in the chicken pieces until the sauce thickens to a sticky glaze. Which it will since the corn flour coating on the chicken will act as a thickener.
Heap high over lettuce and sprinkle over sesame seeds and spring onion tops. Fork away!
ORANGE CHICKEN SALAD
Ingredients
- 500 grams boneless chicken (I used thighs)
- ¼ cup corn flour
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon oil
- Sesame seeds, to serve
- Spring onion tops, to serve
- Lettuce, to serve
- Salt, to taste
Sauce:
- ½ cup orange juice
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons orange marmalade
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- 1 inch piece of ginger, grated
- 5 garlic cloves, grated
- Chilli flakes, to taste
- Salt, to taste
Instructions
- Chop the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Toss with corn flour, salt, oil, and an egg.
- Air fry at 180 C for 20-25 mins in an even layer. Turn the pieces once halfway through. Alternatively, drizzle on a little more oil and bake them in the oven, or pan-fry in a large pan.
- Meanwhile make the sauce: mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Taste and adjust seasoning.
- Add the sauce to a large, wide pan. Keeping the pan over a medium flame, toss the chicken pieces in the sauce to coat the chicken evenly.
- The sauce will thicken to a sticky glaze in a few mins. Take the pan off the heat when this happens.
- Add chopped lettuce to your serving plate. Heap the chicken pieces over the lettuce. Top with sesame seeds and spring onion tops. Serve warm or at room temp.
Notes
- Serves 2 as a main course.
- Orange marmalade gives the dish an extra dimension of flavour, but it can be replaced with 2 teaspoons of sugar.
Leave a Reply