1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts (i used a pound and a half, since there were three of us and that's the package size i had. we devoured it too. serves 4, my ass. serve four with copious sides. allow half a pound of chicken per person if the only accompanyment is rice or noodles. i doubled the marinade and the sauce for the extra chicken. i could have gotten away with 1.5 times-ing the marinade, but having twice the sauce was a good thing.)
the marinade
2 tbs dark soy sauce (i used what we had... not sure if it qualifies as dark or light, since everything on the label save the words "soy sauce" is in !English)
2 teas dry sherry (sub: rice wine)
1 teas vegetable oil
1 teas minced peeled fresh ginger (i'm sure that the fresh stuff is better, but part of the point was to avoid buying more groceries. i eyeballed about a teas of powdered ginger.)
1 teas grated orange zest (i left this out completely, since we didn't have an orange lying around, and i've never had really good luck using zest to great effect, anyhow. the end result was tasty, but could have been more orangey. i'm thinking that buying orange essense, if i can find it, would be a good call. i'm also thinking a shot of triple sec probably would have done the trick. i did end up adding )
2 teas cornstarch
1/2 teas salt
1/2 teas peppper
the sauce
1/2 cup fresh orange juice (or orange-tangerine juice, lalalala...)
1 tbs thin soy sauce (see above comments about the soy sauce)
1 tbs oyster sauce (sub: fish sauce)
1 tbs Asian seasame oil
zest of one orange (see comments about zest and triple sec... i left it out here too)
2 teas sugar (i thought about using brown sugar here, but i stuck to white)
1 teas cornstarch
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup of veggie oil
2 tbs slivered ginger (see above)
4 dried hot chillies, crumbled (we are spice wimps around here. very very wimpy. i skipped the hot chillies and settled for stirring just a tiny pinch of chipotle powder into the sauce.)
1. cut the chicken into 1/4 inch slices.
2. in a bowl, combine the marinade ingredients. add chicken, toss to combine, let stand for 10 minutes.
3. in another bowl, combine the sauce ingredients. whisk to mix well. set aside.
4. in a wok, heat the veggie oil over high heat and stir-fry the chicken in batches for 3 to 5 minutes, until cooked through. remove to plate. pour off and discard any excess oil, leaving about 1 teas in the wok. return the wok to the heat, add the ginger slices and hot chillies, and stir-fry for 30 seconds. add the chicken and the sauce mixture. bring to a simmer and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens. toss to coat the chicken slices well. serve immediately.
we served this up with brown rice (all hail the rice cooker) and it was really, really good. it was more sweet and sour than orangey, but still really, incredibly tasty and relatively easy. we'll definitely be making this again.