Fans Iron Chef, Week 4

[Liam Jinn]

Now for the next ingredient, chosen by ME! Just to be different, I choose -

An Orange.

Don't care what kind, just use an orange. There. Quit looking at this thread and do something. I mean it.

[General Dan]

Oh hell yes!

This is going to be mega fun. I already know what I want to make, more or less :D

[Park Kraken]

Let's see, I live in Central Florida, so getting my hands on an orange won't be difficult at all. It's what to make is the question. But I think I have a suitable idea in mind, although it would deviate from my simple dishes.

[Mitch]

Mitch cannot eat oranges. He must bow out from this challenge. =(

[Miranda Tarkin]

aw man, food allergy? :(

[Mitch]

No, a copper issue. Oranges are high in copper, and I have to avoid copper. Sadly, this eliminates about 2/3'rds of the world's food to be really safe, or half to be okay.

[Quenn Yeartel]

Excellent!

Having someone who is not cooking set the ingredient is probably a better idea than us doing it.

Of course I might not actually enter this week because... ehh.... it's past the time of the month when I still have money for groceries. But I'll try to get an orange and do something with what's left in the larder...

[Yeart Quenn]

Ehm... I'm gonna have to say that I won't have my dish ready until tomorrow (well, that would be about 7am EST), because I spent most of the weekend chasing after people and having nasty migraines and so didn't get to buy any ingredients. Can I still qualify if I post it then?

[Sanis Prent]

I'm okay with a one day postponement if other people are too. I cooked for a lot of people yesterday and I'm not sure if I can turn out my dish today either.

[Park Kraken]

I cooked my dish tonight and took pictures, but I have to get ready to go to work right now, so I won't be able to post it up until tomorrow.

[Yeart Quenn]

I ran into some trouble with one of my ingredients, so I'm having to improvise... pics will be up later today

[Nya Halcyon]

Alright.... here comes my entry, at last:

Chicken with Orange, Honey & Earl Grey Tea Sauce

Okay, originally this recipe is for Duck Breast, but I'd asked my dad to get me some duck when he went to the wholesale the other day and I guess he didn't pay too much attention to what he got: after I thawed my "whole duck" it appeared it was just the bones and fat and very little meat - and definitely no breast on that thing. So I stuck the stuff onto a deep oven pan and roasted them for a bit, which meant I got all the drippings I needed for the rest of the recipe, and took out some chicken legs instead.
The recipe itself is something I found a while ago but haven't had the chance to try out; Earl Grey tea is one of my absolute favorites and I have always been curious about the taste of that sauce, so when Liam suggested an orange, I decided to give it a shot. Next time I'll get myself some proper duck breast, but for now the chicken was a fine substitute.

Ingredients:

http://www.nyahalcyon.net/misc/Orange/01.jpg

4 chicken legs with skin (otherwise 2 boneless duck breast halves, about 1 3/4 pounds total)
2 oranges, sliced (use untreated oranges and leave the skin on)
3 tbsp duck drippings (or goose fat or just plain butter)
1 cup chopped red onions or shallots
2 1/4 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 cups freshly squeezed orange juice
4 1/2 tsp Earl Grey tea leaves (or 5 tea bags, leaves removed from bags)
1 tbsp honey
3 tbsp butter
salt, pepper to taste
1/4 tsp Chinese 5-spice
1 tsp cornstarch

Served with Orzo pasta

Preparation:

http://www.nyahalcyon.net/misc/Orange/02.jpg

First I switched on the oven at 450°F.
The chicken legs I sprinkled with some sea salt and pepper. Then I put 2 tbsp full of the drippings into a large frying pan and fried the chicken legs in that until they were a nice brown color on both sides.
In an oven dish I put the remaining duck drippings, laid out half of the orange slices on the bottom, then arranged the chicken on top, put the lid on the dish and put it into the oven for about 30 minutes - after the first 15 minutes I removed the lid and covered the chicken in the remaining orange slices.

While this was roasting away, I made the sauce:
Using the fat left in the frying pan, I sautéed the chopped onion in this until it was turning brown (after 5 minutes or so it should be fine and there shouldn't be any large amount of fat still floating in there - if there is, it needs to go). I added the chicken broth, orange juice and tea leaves to the onions and let it boil away for 20 minutes or so, until the liquid was visibly reduced to about half the original amount.
Then I strained this into a smaller pot, squeezing as much liquid out from the solids as I could before throwing them away. The strained sauce I brought to a boil in the pot, then added the honey and butter. According o the original recipe this was supposed to thicken the sauce, but it didn't do me that favor so I mixed some of it with a teaspoon of cornstarch in a small glass, then whisked that in with the rest of the sauce which did make it thicker.
Finally I added some salt, pepper and the 5-spice for taste.

The chicken was done after the 30 minutes, and I arranged it over a bed of Orzo pasta, decorated it with an orange slice from the bottom of the roasting dish and a sliced strawberry, and drizzled the sauce over the pasta.

http://www.nyahalcyon.net/misc/Orange/03.jpg

And the verdict?

One very yummy and unusual dish. The flavor from the tea mixed very well with the honey and the oranges - it wasn't bitter or sweet, it was just the right mix, and a huge hit with my daughter. Next time I'm doing this with duck, and inviting the rest of the family.

[Sanis Prent]

Orange chicken with pilau rice

Was originally going to make this a Maghreb-influenced dish with couscous, but Christin doesn't really like couscous so I decided to make this dish with a subtly curried rice instead.

Let's start of first - the orange marinade. You need this stuff:

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/sauceprep.jpg

Four navel oranges
2 tbsp white vinegar
4 tbsp honey
2 tsp corriander, crushed
2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp cumin

If you have a juicer, good for you! Use it and juice your oranges. If you are like me and you don't have a juicer, cut your oranges into quarters and systematically juice each slice into a small sauce pot, crying while you listen to the Cure and cursing the world for not buying you a juicer. You're not making your sweetheart some fresh-squeezed OJ so nobody gives a crap if you have a lot of pulp in this.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/sauce.jpg

Turn up the heat to high, and bring the pot to a boil. Back off of this until you bring the pot back to a simmer, and let it simmer for about 15 minutes or until you reduce the OJ by a third.

To this, add your spices, vinegar, honey, and cornstarch, and give it a stir. Try not to smell it right now because it kind of smells like barf but I swear it smells nice by the time you let it cool. Anyway, take the marinade off the heat and set it aside. Now, you should have enough marinade to soak up to eight chicken thighs overnight. Do that. Actually, score the chicken thighs up a little with a sharp knife first, then do that.

Oh, you thought you were going to crank this out in one night? Hah, pulled a fast one on you, sucker. Better drown your sorrows in some rice crispies and think about tomorrow.




Ok, it should now be tomorrow. Wow that was fast. Ok, lets make some pilau rice.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/riceprep.jpg

Here's what I'll be taking from the starving mouths of third world babies today:

1.5 cups uncooked Jasmine rice
2 cups water
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp rough-crushed peppercorns
1/2 tsp Saffron threads (THREADS NOT POWDER OK)
1/2 tsp Orange flower water, which is a fu-fu silly food additive so don't worry if you don't have any. You can always substitute this with urine (don't substitute this with urine, just do without you plebeian)
Five whole cloves
About five cardamoms, crushed & bruised
Almond slivers, about a fist-full
1 cinnamon stick
Juice from orange slice
Orange zest

Boil some water, and add a tablespoon of boiling water to your saffron threads, and let those sit for about 20 minutes.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/saffron.jpg

From here, I add the saffron and water to my rice and water in a rice cooker, as well as the orange flower water. This is probably blasphemous to somebody but it turns out okay.

Wait a few minutes, then heat your oil in a medium saucepan to medium high, then toss in your peppercorns, cardamoms, cloves, and cinnamon. Turn the heat down to low and prepare for incoming spicy artillery barrage. I nearly had a piece of cardamom bullseye me between the eyes before I could get the splatter guard up, but the smell here has to be experienced. Amazing!!

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/spices.jpg

Your rice should be getting done soon, so spoon that fluffy orange & white stuff out of the cooker and into your pan. Toss the almonds and salt in, and flip it around, cooking on medium heat for a bit until everything is glistening and the spices are thoroughly mixed. Set that aside.


Now, the chicken. But first, lets cut up some zucchini! Cut it into little slivers, and salt each piece. These will play sloppy seconds in the dirty oil after the chicken, so set them aside.

Now, oil up your big skillet, and get the chicken out. Notice how nice the marinade smells now! It's strange, but the spices settle down in the citrus and everything smells like its full of sunshine. Crank the heat to nearly high heat. Cry havoc, and let slip the thighs of war!

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/thighs.jpg

PS I hope you're not wearing anything that wouldn't look gorgeous with a nice polka-dotting of oil or orange sauce. Sorry, you're going to get hit. Nothing can save you. You're dead already. At least your ghost will know the deliciousness of the final product.

Anyway, give each side a good scourging under the heat, so that you get that wonderful blackening and around the marinade. Spoon the dregs over the meat as you turn it, and reduce to a medium high for about 5-7 minutes. When you take the meat off the skillet and onto a plate, add the zucchini, and let each side of the disc get a nice caramel color before taking out of the pan. Time to deglaze, if you like that sort of thing. I do, so I used some chardonnay to do the trick, which served up a thick sauce the color of bourbon on top of my chicken and zucchini.

Now, time to garnish up a little. Splash juice from an orange slice into your rice, and grate orange zest into it as well. Thinly slice orange slices for garnish.

You should have some crap that looks like this, maybe:

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/magrhebpilau.jpg

Dig in!

I used a little too much oil for the chicken pan, and the rice needed more salt. That aside, this dish was a total citrus celebration. The saffron, orange flower water, and cardamom in the rice totally played off the orange tones, and the sweeter spices in the rice shook hands with the bolder ones in the chicken. Lots of summertime flavor here, and the chicken was so tender that I could cut it with the broad edge of a fork.

Don't get me wrong, I still want to do this with couscous, but I think this was a great dish the way it is :)

[Elani Sanjee]

Soooo.... what's happening? No other entries? Bah...

[Ryan Pode]

Orange was too difficult for me to properly create something.

[Park Kraken]

I seem to have misplaced my camera before I could upload the pictures. Hopefully I find it in time for next weekend.

EDIT: I could still post up the recipe I suppose, but it didn't turn out that well. I had made a Blackened Salmon stir fry dish, but I kind of messed up on cooking the fish before hand (1-was first time frying fish, and 2-later learned that salmon is better baked than fried) and crispied it, which kind of spoiled the rest of the dish. To round out the stir fry I used brown rice, pineapple chunks, (si)valencia orange slices(si), sliced carrots and peas, and a mixture of other tasty stuff.