SusanP - help with one of your Budget recipes

[MargaretJ]

Susan can you help me with exact directions on this recipe you posted for me?


Got chicken? Dump a can of mandarin oranges over top of whatever chicken is cheapest for you(when they are on sale, stock up on both)I prefer boneless/skinless just for ease, drizzle a bit of honey over each piece, sprinkle each with sesame seeds and ginger. This is fancy enough for company but not too expensive if you buy chicken in bulk when on sale and freeze it individually.


Question do you cook the chicken first & then put on the honey, oranges etc last or do you put on before cooking & cover with foil?

[SusanP]

Ooops, sorry for the delay, hope this wasn't for supper!
Take whatever chicken you choose and place (raw) in a 9x13 or similar baking dish. Pour the can of mandarin oranges with juice over-I try and get most of the oranges on the chicken, but no matter as you can just spoon them up. Drizzle chicken with a bit of honey, this gives the seeds and ginger something to stick to, sprinkle them on next.
Bake without a cover or foil til chicken done (30 min if you pound the breasts, 45 -60 if thicker or pieces-whatever you normally cook chicken at). There should be lots of juice to keep it moist and the open pan lets the honey carmelize and brown the meat a bit. I have never tried it covered, I'm sure it would taste quite good.
Great with rice as it is a bit Chinesey-don't serve anything with too strong a flavour with it or it would overpower ie save the Caesar salad for another night! If you put scrubbed potatoes on the oven rack at the same time you can kill two birds with one stone. Nice baked potatoes with crispy skin! Just don't wrap them in foil or pierce them.
It really is that easy, just throw it all in a pan-in the right order-and bake! Let me know how you like it.

[MargaretJ]

Thanks Susan. I tried this with foil covering & pineapple instead of the oranges. It was very good. I think next time I might try to leave the foil off because I do think the carmalized honey would make it nicer. I don't like Ginger so did not use that, can you think of another spice that might work well?

[SusanP]

I'm not really a spice person so I'm not sure what else you could use, but I think anything not too strong would work fine. What else is found in Chinese cooking????? I have left off the ginger and it is still good, but I don't use fresh ginger and really only sprinkle a teeny bit on each piece. Unless you really HATE ginger, you might just try a smidge of the ground stuff.
Maybe even some cinnamon, cloves, or nutmeg as they are often used with fruits-I bet some nutmeg or cloves would be good with canned pears! You've got me thinking now!

[MargaretJ]

Hmm nutmeg or cinnamon maybe. Got me thinking about the chicken I had at Restaurant Marrakesh at Epcot. It was really good. Thanks so much!