Cooking with Blobby

The weather must be changing. It's still good enough to do the majority of dinners on the grill. But I wanted to try something else - and so I did

Orange Pepper Chicken - I mean, what doesn't sound good about that? 

There aren't tons of ingredients, but this one is about timing. In retrospect - and in the future - I'd prep like it was America's Test Kitchen and everything measured out at the start so things could come together a little more easily. 

It's not that I miscalculated a lot, it is just that some of it was more rushed than I would have liked. I did have one small error. 

There are kind of three steps: making the marinade, cooking the chicken and making the sauce. That last one wasn't exactly my downfall, but I made assumptions that you'd make the sauce in the pan with the chicken. Nope. So I had to pivot and pick up the pace. 

Let's get going. 

INGREDIENTS 

Makes 4-5 servings (It made 3 servings. No way this could feed 4-5 people)

MARINADE 

2 lbs chicken thighs, boneless 

3 cloves garlic, minced 

1 orange, juiced 

1/2 C soy sauce, low-sodium 

1 TBSP rice vinegar 

1 tsp kosher salt 

1/4 C olive oil 

ORANGE PEPPER SAUCE 

Zest of 1 orange 

2-3 oranges, juiced (about 1 C) 

1 TBSP black peppercorns, coarsely crushed 

1 TBSP soy sauce, low-sodium 

1 tsp sesame oil 

3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped 

3 TBSP butter, unsalted 

1 tsp fresh ginger, finely grated 

1/3 C honey 

Salt to taste 

DIRECTIONS 

STEP 1: MARINADE Combine the marinade ingredients in a bowl or large Ziploc bag and fully coat the chicken. Allow to marinate in the refrigerator for 2-4 hours, or at least 30 mins. 

That's lookin' purdy - no?

STEP 2: COOK Grill the chicken over medium heat for 12-15 minutes, flipping occasionally. Alternatively, the chicken can be cooked at 400°F in the air fryer for 25 minutes or the oven for about 30 minutes with a flip halfway through. The chicken is done when the internal temperature reaches 170°F. 

STEP 3: SAUCE When the chicken is finished cooking, preheat a skillet or saucepan over medium heat. Sauté the crushed peppercorns and garlic in olive oil until the garlic just begins to brown and get fragrant, then reduce heat to low. Quickly add in the orange juice and butter so the garlic doesn’t burn. Then add the soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and honey. Simmer on low for a few minutes until it begins to thicken, then turn off the heat and add the orange zest and salt to taste. 

This is the one error. I got soy sauce into the marinade, but for got to add the 1 tablespoon to the sauce pan. I'm not sure how much this might have changed the make-up. 

The sauce was thin, so I did make a cornstarch slurry to thicken it up - which it did, nicely.

Coat the chicken in the sauce then serve.

I served it over jasmine rice. 

It was all good, but not what I was expecting.  I assumed the peppercorn flavour would pop more. The kitchen reeked of garlic, but in the dish it wasn't overpowering, nor was the ginger. Or the orange, for that matter. It melded together just great - but with all those flavours I thought it would be more bold. 

Maybe that was the point, of course. The blend was supposed to happen the way it did. I think the honey had a lot to do with the taming of the taste. While only(?) 1/3 of a cup, the dish had a sweetness factor to it. Garnishing with scallions would have added something too. 

Not an out of the park winner but it has potential. I'd do it again.