Chinese Lemon Chicken

There is one thing that we typically order from a Chinese restaurant, and that is either fried rice, or some version of lemon chicken, or orange beef. This past weekend, I asked my wife, what would you like to have for dinner tonight (I wanted something on the grill as it is summertime) and she quickly responded with “Lemon Chicken, wouldn’t that be good?” Why yes, that would be good, however what she did not realize is that I had no chicken, no lemons, no scallions, and no ginger. 🙂 I love my wife very much, so I quickly dashed to the store and got the ingredients to make her a truly wonderful chinese version of lemon chicken. The ingredients are pretty basic, appear to be a lot, however it is really easy to make, and the result is a really delicious dish.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• 5 skinless, and boneless chicken breasts, cut into strips
• Finely cut green onions
• Finely sliced lemons
• Enough oil for deep frying

Batter:

• 1 tbs of salt
• 1 tbs of pepper
• 3 tbs of cold water
• 3/4 cup of cornstarch
• 1 1/2 tbs soy sauce
• 4 egg yolks, remove the whites

Lemon Sauce:

• 1/2 cup of lemon juice
• 3 tbs of cornstarch
• 3 tbs light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup of chicken stock
• 1 tbs finely grated or chopped ginger
• 1/2 tbs of salt
• 3 tbs honey
• 1 cup of cold water

Note that you will most likely want to serve this with white rice.

Begin by making the sauce. Combine the sauce ingredients and mix well in a sauce pan. Stir the mixture on low heat for a few minutes until the sugar begins to dissolve. You will want to keep on eye on this while you bring it to a boil. Once it comes to a boil, reduce the heat and let the sauce thicken. You will now begin to realize that this is the sauce used for lemon chicken and it is hard not to taste. Once thickened, remove from the heat and let it wait for the final stages of plating.

Next, make the batter. In a small bowl, add the soy sauce, water, and the egg yolks, and beat until well combined. To a larger bowl, add the cornstarch and salt and pepper. Slowly stir in the egg mixture to make your batter. Add your chicken strips to the batter and make sure you mix to get the batter all over the chicken strips. Set aside and bring your oil to temp.

Once the oil is nice an hot, carefully take individual strips, careful not to touch one another in the oil, and cook until golden brown. These only take several minutes to cook. Since there are a lot of strips, you will do these in probably 3 to 5 batches. Drain, season with salt, and put them on a warming tray in the oven on roughly 250 degrees, until you are ready to plate. Continue the frying process until everything is done.

Now you are ready to plate. First start by adding cooked white rice to the plate, add your chicken strips, then ladle on the sauce to your liking. Spring with green onions, and serve with lemon slices.

If you have trusted me in the past, then trust me on this one, it is really good and brings out the wonderful flavors of chinese take-out. Enjoy.