Wednesday, October 04, 2006

By popular demand...
...actually, 'cause Dan says I'm cruel.

This recipe, aside from a few substitutions, is the Lemon Chicken recipe Vanessa brought over (exceptions noted):

Fortunate Lemon Chicken

4 whole boneless chicken breasts, skin off
½ cup cornstarch (corn flour)
3 tbsp water
4 egg yolks – gently beaten
salt, pepper – to taste
shallots – chopped*

Lemon Sauce
½ cup lemon juice
2 tsp powdered chicken stock
2 tbls cornstarch (corn flour)
2 tbls honey
2½ tbls brown sugar**
1 tsp grated ginger
1¾ cups water

For the sauce, combine all the ingredients in a saucepan and stir over a low heat until it boils and then thickens.

Cut the chicken breast fillets into 3-4 pieces. Lay flat and pound slightly with a mallet or other heavy object.

Place cornstarch in a bowl and slowly add the water, and then add the slightly beaten egg yolks. Next add salt and pepper to your liking.

Dip the chicken pieces into this batter and ensure you drain well.

Place a couple pieces of the battered chicken at a time, into deep hot oil and fry until lightly browned.

Drain on absorbent paper.

Slice chicken further if required.

Arrange on plates of freshly cooked white rice. Sprinkle with shallots and spoon over hot lemon sauce.

* The recipe we were referencing called for green onions, instead of shallots.
** Vanessa's recipe requested granulated sugar, not brown sugar.
Omitted during preparation.

A few other notes: salt and pepper were not called for in Vanessa's recipe; we used fresh-squeezed lemon juice (1 lemon's worth); all water used was filtered; we meant to make a small quantity of fresh chicken stock from the breast bone, but forgot, hence the omission; the chicken was cut into bite-sized pieces before "breading" and cooking; the sauce was prepared last, to prevent it from turning into a jelly-like substance during the chicken preparation.

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7 Comments:

At Wed Oct 04, 01:01:00 pm GMT-4, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is the part where you put it into oil done in a deep fryer? Or some other fancy cooking doo-dad?

 
At Wed Oct 04, 02:05:00 pm GMT-4, Blogger ghanima said...

Eek! I long ago vowed to never own a deep fryer. Far too much temptation to deep-fry, you see. Nope, we just used oil in my much-loved cast iron skillet. If it ever rusted or (perish the thought) cracked, I'd be utterly heartbroken.

 
At Wed Oct 04, 02:52:00 pm GMT-4, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Silly question time... are you supposed to 'dry' the chicken before dipping in the batter?

Just asking because this actually looks like a recipe I might be able to manage *laugh*... assuming, of course, I can ever work with hot oil without burning myself....

 
At Wed Oct 04, 03:05:00 pm GMT-4, Blogger ghanima said...

The batter is actually pretty wet, so we didn't bother with drying the chicken. Generally, of course, getting as much moisture as possible out of your food prevents a molten-oil shower.

Since you mention burning yourself (I hope not too badly), do you have a splatter shield? I haven't invested in one yet, myself (another way to prevent myself from deep-frying food), but there was one particular instance where I got a fine sheen of oil over most of the kitchen (cabinets, floor, counter, etc) from the near-lethal combination of the intense heat of the cooking oil and the lack of splatter shield.

 
At Wed Oct 04, 03:51:00 pm GMT-4, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Splatter shield? Heck no... that would imply I had a well-stocked kitchen *laugh*

I like to cook, but I'm really much more of a baker. I have found, though, that when cooking with oil (any amount... it doesn't seem to matter), it'd much rather land on me than be pretty much anywhere else.

Hmm... maybe I can draft that husband of mine into doing the actual cooking part of this one... *plot*

 
At Wed Oct 04, 04:16:00 pm GMT-4, Blogger ghanima said...

Ah, the scientific mind. Most right-brain thinkers I know prefer baking too. Us lefties like cooking -- I've had many more disastrous attempts at baking than cooking 'cause of my urge to experiment.

 
At Thu Oct 05, 08:51:00 am GMT-4, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Experimentation in baking can work... they key is to keep the experimentation to the 'accents' and not the 'basics' ;) Example, I have a recipe for cranberry biscotti (yummy... very high-demand item at Christmas ;) )... it has also become a recipe for apple-cinnamon biscotti and apricot and almond biscotti... slight tweaking in the basic ingredients depending on the flavour sources (ground almonds can replace some flour, for example), but the 'essence' of the biscotti remains the same.

But then, I'm a bizarro arts-techie-math geek hybrid ;)

 

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