Orange Glazed Chicken

This is the third post in a series of four meals that I make with one chicken.  Here are the first two meals:
- BBQ Chicken
- Braised Chicken Thighs

I really don’t like chicken breasts.  I find them generally to be pretty bland and tasteless and most of the time they are dry due to overcooking.  Plus, they are expensive so I generally avoid them.

A chicken has two breasts though so I had to do something with them.  I chose this:

This recipe had sort of a Chinese food feel to it (Orange chicken) but it is a bit different in that the chicken isn’t fried and the glaze is much better than anything I’ve ever had in a Chinese dish.

Orange-honey Glazed Chicken (from one of my go-to cookbooks America’s Test Kitchen 2009)

Glaze:
- 1 1/2 Cups Orange Juice + 2 Tablespoons
- 1/3 Cups light corn syrup
- 3 Tablespoons honey
- 1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard
- 1 Tablespoon white vinegar
- 1/8 Teaspoon red pepper flakes

Other stuff:
- 1/2 Cup all-purpose flour
- Chicken breasts (This is enough glaze for 4.)
- 2 Teaspoons vegetable oil
- 1 shallot or 3 Tablespoons onion, minced

Helpful Equipment:
- Cast Iron Skillet

First thing first, let’s get our glaze ready.  Basically, combine all of the above glaze ingredients together in a bowl and whisk them together really well.  The corn syrup and honey will not want to play nice, but if you whisk for a few minutes they will combine alright.

Some people are anti-corn syrup, but there isn’t a lot in this recipe and it does give the glaze a really nice consistency in the final product.  It also isn’t as sweet as you might think.  It is almost more of a thickener than a sweetener.  Regardless, you want it.

Next for the chicken, take your breasts and give them a liberal dose of salt and pepper.  Betsy doesn’t like skin on her chicken breasts (blasphemy), but I do so I did one with skin and one without.  After some salt and pepper, dredge the breasts in flour.  Dust them off afterward.  You want a light coating of flour that will basically help the glaze adhere to the chicken later on.

Heat up your two teaspoons of oil in an oven-safe pan, in this case I used a cast iron skillet.  If you haven’t noticed, I use my cast iron skillet more than any piece of equipment in the kitchen.  If you don’t have one, I highly recommend them.  Lodge makes a pretty good one.

Once your pan is hot, sear your chicken for 4-5 minutes a side.

Once both sides are seared, take your chicken out of the pan.  It is medium rare at this point which is not where you want chicken.  Don’t worry.  We’ll get back to it in a minute.

Next, pour out all of the fat and oil from the pan besides about a Teaspoon.  Then pour all of your glaze into the hot pan.  Scrape up any bits of chicken and let that simmer away.

This will need about 10-15 minutes to reduce down.  Meanwhile, I noticed I had an audience.  Tipsy likes to watch me cook every night.  I snapped this photo while waiting for that glaze to reduce.

Eventually that orange glaze will reduce down to a syrupy sauce.  It should easily coat the back of a spoon or spatula.

Take your chicken breasts and turn them over in the sauce, making sure to coat them well.  Then put the entire pan in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.

If you don’t have an oven-safe pan, you can transfer the whole deal to a baking pan.  Just make sure the chicken is coated well in the glaze.  In fact, I took my pan out after 10 minutes and turned the breasts around again in the glaze to coat them a second time.

After the come out of the oven, the chicken will be glazed nicely and the sauce will be reduced substantially.

Take the chicken out and let it rest for five minutes.  Return the glaze to the stove top.  If you were not using an oven-safe pan, then scrape whatever glaze is left in your baking dish back into an sautee pan.  Put this on medium-high heat and let it reduce even further.

Add your final 3 Tablespoons of orange juice to the pan.  It will give the final glaze a nice orange flavor and color.  After it reduces for a few more minutes, pour it right on top of your chicken.

This was the most difficult of the 4 meals I made with my chicken, but it was very good.  Even for chicken breasts it was incredibly flavored-packed.

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