Honey Lemon Chicken

You know what’s fabulous? Chinese food.

The sheer size of China allows for a breathtaking amount of culinary diversity, from hot and spicy to sweet and delicate. Since we had a big family, we often had to go somewhere that would accommodate a large crowd, and the local Chinese restaurants filled that bill admirably. When I was a kid, I would look at the intricate mooncakes and family style dishes with badly suppressed curiosity.

You just could get so many things! You could order three or four dishes, and they were all something new with flavors I didn’t see at home (I inherited my adventuresome palate from my mom, really. She had a wok and a dream, but the eighties weren’t a great decade for spices in rural Oregon!) But the Chinese restaurants? Absolutely had our backs. Not only that, they had tea in little cups and, I mean, I was a kid, but being out with the family with pretty tea sets and a shared meal felt so delightfully fancy that to this day I gravitate to Chinese restaurants when I feel like a special meal.

Of course, now, most of the menu is off limits to me. Eggs feature in a lot of the dishes, many of the sauces, etc. use cornstarch or actual corn, there’s malt and/or barley in some of the vinegars, and it all uses soy (which I can maybe have once a month and then walk around looking sunburned), and then there’s the surprise peanuts lurking in the garnishes… What used to be fun is now a rather stressful experience requiring a lot of prep work and kitchen communication. So, when I want something to remind me of good times and family outings, I make my own approximation of a Chinese take out!

As you might have noticed, I’m a big fan of chicken and the way it tastes. I also love lemons. The recipe I have today is loosely based on the Orange Chicken recipe from The Woks of Life, a family-run food blog you’ve probably already heard of! And when I say ‘loosely’ I mean ‘exceptionally loosely.’ A ‘glancing acquaintance.’ The ‘We were at school together’ of a common effort at recipe making, because those guys have their culinary act together and I’m just coming up with stuff I like to eat that will please the family and won’t kill me. Or them, really.

So instead of cornstarch, we have tapioca. Instead of breading, I grilled the chicken, and instead of oranges, I used lemon juice. I haven’t been able to find a sesame oil I can use, so I just went with olive oil, and then I reconfigured the spices to meld with what I had on hand, and added some red peppers because I thought they bulked up the meal.

I liked the tangy sauce that resulted, and the way the honey gave the dish a more caramelized flavor. I liked how the spices warmed my stomach and the chicken was tender and juicy (which is difficult when all you have is the chicken breasts you found lodged in the freezer!)

You’ll Need (Serves 2 – 4):

To prepare the chicken:

2 – 4 chicken breasts or thighs, sliced into chunks

1/2 tsp. olive oil

2 tsps. Mirin (I can’t find a Shaoxing wine that works)

1/4 tsp cinnamon

2 cloves crushed garlic

1/4 chopped onions, or 2 tsps. onion powder

Salt and Pepper to taste (I used black pepper, because again, no white pepper yet)

Instructions: Chop up the chicken, and then put it, along with the spices, vegetables, and oils, into a ziplock bag and let it marinate in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to an hour depending on how much chicken you’re using.

For the sauce:

Juice of one whole lemon

1-2 tsps. fish sauce (this and mirin is my substitute for soy)

1/4 cup chicken stock

1-2 tsps. honey

1 tsp. red chili flakes

1 tsp. tapioca starch

Salt and Pepper to taste

Optional:

1 green onion, chopped

1/2 red pepper, chopped

1 – 2 heads of bok choy, chopped

To Make:

Put all the ingredients of your sauce into a bowl and stir in the tapioca starch with a fork. That way you can avoid little bumps of unwanted powder.

Heat a frying pan or wok with some olive oil on medium heat, and add your marinated chicken. Cook the chicken, turning once, until the bottom of the pan begins to develop a crust, and then add your vegetables. After the vegetables begin to soften, but not crisp, add in your sauce and stir gently to cover the meal. Cook everything together until the sauce easily coats the back of your spoon or spatula, and it’s nice and bubbling.

I like to have it with rice and a nice serving of garlic spinach or asparagus. The sharpness of the lemon pairs well with the melting sweetness of the honey, and the dish perks up my rather dreary not-quite-spring week. While it’s nowhere near the skill level of those Chinese restaurants in my memory, I feel like this is a good way to reincorporate the flavors I miss from when I was young. And, hey, if you can go and eat at your local Chinese restaurant today, do it for me, okay? I’ll live vicariously through you!