My roommate, Cat, while we were in the kitchen making dinner, listening to my playlist:
"You listen to really wierd music"
*Super Bass then S&M and then Real McCoy and then NYSNC*
"What? It's just my iTunes... Shit, it's on the RiHanna dubstep part of the playlist.."
We quite enjoy ourselves when we're cooking... Or at least I think we do.
No it really was enjoyable haha.
First we had gone down to the communal kitchen and there was like a THOUSAND annoying Freshmen down there making "Brinner" and blowing up balloons for no reason.
There was three burners open but no one can get to them because THERE'S A THOUSAND OF STUPID FRESHMEN TO WADE THROUGH. Jesus.
Anyway, Cat and I trudged back upstairs with all our stuff.
We had originally decided on making our own chinese food, like Orange Chicken and Fried Rice. Gahhh my mouth just watered thinking about how good it turned out.
So an hour later *facepalm* we went down there again.
I had been defrosting my frozen chicken breasts in the sink while the Freshmen were in there.
So I looked up a few different recipes on Orange Chicken and Lemon Chicken and they had some crossovers. I wanted to experiment...
So considering I had never fried anything in my life before, I wanted to make sure that I did it somewhat correctly. The first recipe I found and drooled over was one claiming to be "Better Than Takeout Orange Chicken". Hm. I don't know about that yet. BUT I took most of the recipe of that one for the batter for the chicken and combined it with the BlogChef.net Lemon Chicken recipe. Basically they called for 2 eggs and cornstarch.
Well neither me or Cat or the campus market had cornstarch.
Shit.
Alternative as told by Google? Flour. Double the amount and add a little water.
Worked like a charm.
Basically, while I put rice on cook, chopped up the chicken into inch cubes, poured about 1 cup of veg oil into my fry pan and turned up the heat; had Cat scramble 2 eggs and then add about 1/3 of a cup of flour to the mixture, about 2 tsp of Baking powder and 3 tablespoons water.
In another bowl, 2 cups of flour and 5 tsp of baking powder sifted together decently (or mixed with your hands, I mean like I'd have a sifter in my dorm room)
So both recipes said to double dredge. Which means to take the raw pieces of chicken, dunk in the egg mixture, then drop into the flour and repeat. Then place in the fry pan with heated up oil. It'll spit at you, calm down. This kid that I was sharing the stovetop with was cracking me claiming that my chicken didn't like him because it was spitting at him. So I'd tell my chicken to calm themselves and they did :)
But so Cat and I had a good assembly line, and I'd flip and flip and flip those little pieces until they were beautifully golden brown on both sides. I cut a couple of them in half just to check they got cooked all the way through. And yes ma'am they were! So about 4 or 5 minutes in the oil til they're brown and then take them out and place on a plate covered with paper towels to drain.
We made SO MUCH CHICKEN with just the 2 big breast pieces. We've got at least enough to have dinner tomorrow, which is handy since we're going home for break in like 2 days.
So! the rice was cookin', the chicken is draining, and then it was time for the sauce.
Now I probably would've done this better, had I a better kitchen with fewer stairs to run up and down. But so I immediately decided on Lemon chicken (no orange juice :/ ) and made a super simple sauce with:
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup chicken broth
around 1/2 cup of flour
5 tablespoons of lemon juice
dash of sea salt and pepper
So I probably would've added 2 tablespoons of vinegar and potentially lemon zest but oh well.
Then so I put the chicken back in my heated pan*** and poured the sauce-to-be over it and turned up the heat to Med-Hot and stirred/folded it all.
I honestly didn't think too much about it til later, I probably should've just cooked the sauce separately and then pour over the chicken/etc but hey it honestly worked and would work either way I think.
And with all the stuff together, the Lemon chicken recipe told me to wait until the mixture thickened and went clear and whatever. It did thicken, and I was worried about overcooking the chicken, but it was still delicious and looked clear enough to me.
Served over our rice and I'm so glad I was craving chinese.
Rice, done. Check.
Chicken cooked and beautiful. Check.
Sauce applied and made the entire first floor smell delicious. Check.
Epic Roommate Dinner night achieved? Check and Check!
And next week is Thanksgiving!! Pictures and posts to come!!
(I'm so excited for Thanksgiving, I'm making my very own Turkey :D )
***Hey, when you're done cooking your chicken, pour the leftover oil you used into either a jar or a metal can so that you aren't cooking with all of that in your sauce. You can leave some of the little bits that are just residual from frying chicken but don't pour it down the drain or into a trashcan where IT CAN MELT PLASTIC. Be smart. Haven't we had this conversation before?
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