Zesty Orange Chicken is the latest craze on my paleo palate. I have been making this once every week for the past month or so and still look forward to the next week and probably the week after that when I am schedule it in my meal routine. And while most fads disappear after a while this one is soon turning into an obsession!
I started eating chicken in the real sense when I met Neil, my husband back in 2005. While I was always open to trying different cuisines, hailing from a vegetarian background these transitions can be difficult. And trust me you will find all sorts of vegetarians in India – the vegan ones, the egg eating ones, the types that don’t eat chicken but don’t mind the gravy, the kinds that don’t eat onions or garlic etc… and while its hilarious when you put it in perspective, it can be a little overwhelming.
After Neil got me hooked onto the taste of chicken there was never really looking back.
The reason why I fell in love with chicken is the fact that, chicken as a food item is extremely versatile and forgiving. While in itself chicken may not have any taste, it has the wonderful ability like water to adopt the flavours of the curries and seasonings that it has been made in and thats probably what makes chicken so famous with people across the globe. All this not discounting its nutrition content.
Anyways, coming back to Zesty Orange Chicken, if you have read my previous posts you would know by now that I hate the mundane and that was exactly what was happening to my chicken recipes lately. They were delicious, no doubt but were extremely Indian with a masala being the base flavour and I wanted something more. Something that was chicken, non Indian, non salad and was an item of the main course.
However some of my chicken curries are indeed worth trying
Zesty Orange Chicken hit the nail on its head with a tick in all the boxes. It is very main course, extremely flavourful with the sweet and tanginess of orange, adding the much needed kick to your otherwise mundane food routines and is extremely easy to make.
This is what you are going to need to make a kickass Zesty Orange Chicken Curry
Zesty Orange Chicken
Ingredients
- Chicken Breasts - 2 pieces
- Navel Orange - 1 (Zested and Juiced)
- Coconut Oil - 2 tablespoons
- Gluten free Tamari soy sauce - 2 tablespoons
- Organic Molasses - 3 tablespoons
- Avocado Oil - 1.5 tablespoons
- Garlic - 2 cloves (minced)
- Chilli flakes / black pepper / Himalayan sea salt - to taste
- Quinoa - 2 cups
- Dried coconut flakes - to garnish
Instructions
- Cook the quinoa exactly like you would cook rice by adding it to cooking pot and covering it with double the quantity of water. You will know the quinoa is cooked when all the water is absorbed by the quinoa and tiny little white curly tails have emerged from each of its granules
- Chop chicken breasts into cube size pieces
- Heat a skillet and add coconut oil to it when the skillet is adequately hot
- To this add the chopped chicken pieces and cook them from both the sides flipping as needed while cooking
- To make the sauce
- Heat another skillet and add minced garlic, orange zest, orange juice, gluten free tamari soy sauce, organic molasses, avocado oil, red chilli flakes and black pepper
- Cook this for 3 minutes until the mixture thickens and begins to caramelize
- After 3 minutes you will notice the difference as it will have thickened quite well and will have begun to come together. Additionally the aromas arising out of the sauce will be extremely flavourful after the orange juice has mixed well with tamarind and molasses
- Now add the sauce to the chicken (which should also be cooked by now)
- Coat the chicken with the sauce extremely well and cover this mixture and let it set for another 3-4 minutes on a medium flame
- After 3 minutes the sauce will have thickened even further and the chicken will have adopted the wonderful flavour of the sauce
- Garnish with coconut flakes and serve with quinoa
Video