Hi everyone, welcome to Souped Up Recipes. Today we're making a well-known
American Chinese food - orange chicken. It's not traditional, but the technique of making fried chicken and cold it with a sweet and
sour sauce is commonly used in many many Chinese recipes such as sweet and
sour pork, shrimp, tofu, and fish. Anything you name it. In this video, I'm going to show you how
to achieve that crispy on the outside, tender, juicy inside consistency, and a perfectly balanced sweet and sour sauce so you
can make sweet and sour anything. Okay, let's get started. First, you will need some chicken. I'm using chicken breast. Trim off the excess fat. Cut it in half. Angle your knife to 45 degrees and slice the
chicken into a quarter of an inch thick pieces. Usually, I am a chicken thigh person,
but today I only got chicken breast, and it will also work if you marinate it well. It's really simple, 1/2 teaspoon of salt,
a little bit of black pepper to taste. The trick is I'm using freshly squeezed
orange juice as a meat tenderizer. I am using all the juice from half of
an orange, just about two tablespoons. The acid in the fruit can tenderize the meat, and
this amount of liquid will keep the meat moist. Just mix everything until the
chicken absorbs all the liquid. Cover it and let it sit in the
fridge for at least 30 minutes. Next, let's make a batter. Crack two eggs. Beat them well. Add a hundred grams of cornstarch. Use a fork to stir it continually. The cornstarch might clump up at the beginning. Just keep doing it. Once you have got most of the flour,
scrape down the edge with a rubber spatula. Keep mixing it, and you will get
a really smooth, shiny batter. Add the chicken; you really want to get in between each piece of chicken and make
sure they are all coated well. Heat the oil to 360 degrees Fahrenheit. If you don't have a thermometer, you can
test it by dropping a small amount of batter. If you see it bubbles a lot and it floats to the
top immediately, that means you're good to go. Fish them out, and you can add the chicken. I'm using my hand directly above the hot oil. It looks dangerous, but it's not because I am not causing any splashing by dropping
the chicken close to the oil. Of course, you can use chopsticks or tongs. Don't crowd the pan, and make sure they don't
stick together; if they do, separate them. Continually stir to ensure even frying. You can take them out when you feel the surface is
getting hard; they don't need to be golden brown. There will be some little crumbs left in the oil; fish them out as they do
affect the quality of the oil. Fry the second batch of the chicken
once you finish all of them. Set the chicken aside and
let it rest for 10 minutes. We're gonna double fry the chicken. This time, heat the oil to 390 degrees Fahrenheit. You can add all the chicken at once because
they will not stick to each other anymore. Double frying is the key to making sure
all your chicken pieces come out crispy. Keep stirring until you get a golden color. Set it aside, and we'll make the sauce. Heat your wok. Add a little bit of oil,
some minced ginger, garlic, and chili powder (this is optional if you
don't eat seafood, you don't need to add it). Stir until fragrant, then pour
in a quarter cup of orange juice. It is better to be freshly squeezed. Commercial long-life juice doesn't
have that tropical, citrusy flavor. 3.5 tablespoons of light soy
sauce, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, and 1 and 1/2 teaspoon of orange zest. Stir to melt the sugar. I like to add one tablespoon of
honey just for the honey flavor. It is optional and also depends on your taste. Add three tablespoons of white vinegar;
the reason we add it now is that we can drop down the temperature of the liquid
so you can add the cornstarch water. If you add the cornstarch while the
liquid is boiling hot, it will clump up. Keep cooking it on medium-low heat.
Make sure you taste the sauce and find a perfect balance between the
sweetness, sourness, and saltiness. I've made this many times, and
I know this is perfect for me. In about 2 minutes, you should reach a consistency
that is a bit thicker than syrup texture. If the sauce is too thin, the chicken will
lose the crunchiness when you mix everything. Okay, I think the texture looks good. Turn off the heat and add all the chicken. Quickly stir and make sure all
the pieces are coated well. Take them out, and you can serve. Put some diced green onion and red chili powder. I got some extra orange pieces left; put them in the bowl to make the color
pop - looks nice in the presentation. Look at that; I always believe that
shiny-looking food equals delicious. This will be good just with some
plain rice. Let's give it a try. Do you hear that? It is so
crispy. Oh, this is delicious. The orange juice in the marinade does a really
good job keeping that chicken juicy and tender. Also, this smells wonderful - so fresh. You can really taste that orangie citrusy
flavor, and I love the sweet and sour sauce. To me, it's perfect, but
everybody has different tastes. What you need to do is take my recipe
and adjust it to your own preference; then, you have a formula, and you
can make sweet and sour anything. I hope you give this a try soon. If you did leave me a comment,
let me know how it goes. As always, the recipe will be in the
description down below the video. You can go check that out. Don't forget to take a look at my channel. I'm sure you'll find out how to
make your favorite Chinese food. New videos come out every Wednesday,
and I'll see you next time. Bye!
