COOK WITH ME // EASY ORANGE CHICKEN & EGG ROLLS // EASY ASIAN TAKEOUT // CHARLOTTE GROVE FARMHOUSE

Hello my friends and welcome back to my channel. My name is Tiffany and I'm so happy to have you joining me for another cook with me video. In today's video we're going to be making a delicious orange chicken that is a copycat to my favorite from Panda Express where we live here in New England. The closest Panda Express to us is two hours away and it is definitely a fan favorite here in my house and so I am going to be trying to recreate that today with our with this orange chicken recipe. I have made it before so I know it's good we just haven't had it in a long time and when you have a craving sometimes even something at home doesn't get that craving so fingers crossed today that we can get our Panda Express fix in without driving for four hours to go get some. Two there and two back. I'm also going to be making some very simple egg rolls on the side. I'm actually not making those by scratch those are from the frozen food section at the grocery store just I'm going to pop those in the oven those are going to kind of just be our little side dish and hopefully we can have this meal done very very quickly. I'm hoping in about 45 minutes or so so that way we're everybody's eating before they head out to their evening activities so let's go ahead and get started. For today's recipe you're going to use chicken and what kind of chicken is up to you so my family likes a little bit of everything so I'm going to be using a little bit of chicken thigh as well as some chicken breast and I will keep them separated because my husband prefers breast where I prefer thigh so it's that way we just you know get what we like so just so you know you can use whatever kind of chicken you prefer just make sure that it is boneless and skinless and let's go ahead and get started. To get started today I am putting on an apron. I don't always wear an apron however this recipe does use a lot of cornstarch and flour and it can get kind of messy so I just wanted to make sure I didn't get myself all floury and we're going to get started by soaking our rice so I am using Calrose sushi rice and I'm just adding this into a large stock pot. I am doing three cups of cooked rice because there's a lot of us however you can do you know whatever the right amount is for your family. For me to cook this rice it's one cup of rice to one and a half cups water so I've got three cups of rice in there with four and a half cups of water and we're going to let that soak for a little while and then we'll get it started once we get our chicken cooking. So in the meantime I'm going to get our chicken prepped so like I said for today's recipe I am using both chicken thigh and chicken breast and it's really just going to be up to your preference. I think both are absolutely delicious however I do prefer the chicken thigh just a little bit more I do think it's a little bit more tender so that's what I'm using here boneless skinless chicken thigh and you're going to want to cut your chicken into small bite-sized pieces so basically about one inch cubes and that's going to make it a little bit easier to cook as well as to eat so that's what I'm working on here I'm just working on cutting up my chicken into those cubes I'm using my Wusthof chef's knife I do get asked about this knife all of the time this is my favorite item that I have in my kitchen I just recently received this knife as a gift from my husband for Christmas not last Christmas but the Christmas before and it is literally my pride and joy my children know don't mess with this knife and I had just sharpened it the day before so it was ready to go and I just love this knife it just cuts so well and it's so easy to hold in my hand it is an investment but you know there's some things in your kitchen that you want to spend a little bit more money on because they're going to last and they're going to be really good quality and knives are one of those things so I'll have it linked for you down below I did purchase it through well I didn't purchase it but my husband purchased it through Williams Sonoma and that's probably the best place to find them maybe you can find them through the Wusthof website but that is the easiest I'll have it linked for you down below so now that I've got the chicken thighs cut up we're going to go ahead and cut up the breasts I have two leftover chicken breasts from my most recent grocery order and so I'm just again going to cube those up into bite-sized cubes now I do have a different bowl here because my husband prefers not to have the chicken thigh he does really only like the chicken breast I do cook them separately and keep them separate that way he doesn't accidentally get some chicken thigh not that he would really complain I just know he really doesn't like it so out of you know courtesy to him I try to keep them separate so I've got them in a separate bowl here but again I'm just cutting them into those bite-sized pieces into the cubes and that's going to make it easier to cook especially evenly and much easier to eat so once you have your chicken in the bowls now we're going to work on our dredge so I'm getting started with a little bit of salt a little bit of black pepper and then you're going to add in a quarter cup of corn starch now this is really important corn starch is what's going to help give your chicken that little bit of crunch when you're eating it so a quarter cup of corn starch now I am doubling this recipe so I'm doing a quarter of corn starch in each and then you're also going to do a third a cup of flour just all-purpose flour so I'm adding that in now as well and one thing I will mention is that you're supposed to add in one egg and you're supposed to do that before you do your corn starch and flour however I completely forgot to do the egg um a lot of times I try to remember recipes from the top of my head instead of pulling them up on my phone and this was one of those where I was like oh man I knew I needed the egg I just completely forgot so I'm adding the egg in now this is backwards but the egg works as a binder to help adhere your dry ingredients to your chicken so you want to put that in beforehand so you're not dealing with this gloopy mess I'm dealing with here but it's okay while that's sitting I wanted to get my oil heating on the stove you want your oil to be really hot before you put your chicken in you don't want your chicken to sit in oil that is not ready to fry anything yet that just makes your food extra oily and gross so get your oil going I've got mine on medium high heat and I'm gonna go back to my chicken now and we're gonna add in a little bit of water probably about a tablespoon of water into each bowl this is what's going to create that batter on your chicken so you want your chicken to be um you know dredged perfectly and a good batter on there maybe like a waffle style batter you don't want it too thin because that will just kind of drip right off your chicken when you go to fry it but you also don't want it clumpy so you want about the waffle batter consistency would be my best way of describing that next up you're going to pop it into your fryer you can hear that sizzle make sure you wait until your oil is ready to fry you can test it by putting a little bit of salt into the oil and watching to see if it sizzles when it does that means it's ready for your chicken and you're just going to pop this in by the time you get your whole entire pan full of chicken it's going to be time to kind of zhuzh them up so I've got all my chicken in here now I'm going to grab some clean tongs that I can use so that I'm not contaminating the chicken once it starts cooking and you're just going to kind of move it around flip it back and forth you don't want it to sit for too long because it'll burn and you don't want it burnt but you do want it nice and golden brown so that way your chicken is cooked all the way through and it's nice and crispy when you bite into it I would say you probably want to let your chicken cook for about four to five minutes per batch that you have in your pan once you have your chicken going you're going to want to go ahead and turn on your rice so as you see my rice is on there I do have it on high at first I'm going to cook it on high until it's boiling then I'm going to drop it down to low and let it simmer until it's absorbed all of the liquid so you want to just check to make sure that all your water has been absorbed you can cook this in a rice cooker I just prefer rice on the stove I just think it tastes better and it's a little fluffier I just grabbed one of my baking sheets that has a drip rack on it or a cooling rack for today we're using it as a drip rack and that is what I use every time I fry any kind of chicken it's just easy to pull the chicken out and put it on top of that drip pan or drip sheet and it will allow for the oil to drip through you could use a plate with some paper towel if you have that but just make sure that you're changing that paper towel regularly because it does get pretty soaked with oil very quickly and then it's not really doing any job of absorbing anymore so just change that out regularly when you pull your chicken out make sure you get all of the little pieces so nothing burns and starts to smoke and add in your next batch I would say I did three batches of the chicken thigh and three batches of the chicken breast and just keep you know switching them over until they're all the way cooked and all of your batches have gone through does take a little bit of time but it is worth it if you have a wok this would be a great time to use it you would put oil down in the bottom enough to submerge your chicken and then you can kind of just stir it around the edges of the wok regularly until it's all the way cooked we do have a wok but for today's episode since that isn't something everybody usually has in their kitchen I figured I would keep it you know simple okay now we're going to work on our egg rolls so these are store-bought egg rolls they're chicken egg rolls that I picked up at my local grocery store and I just cooked them in my microwave for about two minutes so that's to warm up the inside and get them going I have my oven turned on to air fry at 400 degrees and I'm popping these in about five or six minutes later you're going to go ahead and flip them over these are already crispy and looking delicious they smell so good I just flipped them over and stuck them back into the oven while I finished cooking up the chicken so now I've got my chicken breast in we're just finishing up the rest of our chicken making sure it's all cooked and ready to go and then we're going to get to working on our sauce all right our egg rolls are done so we're going to take those out and let those cool a little bit and we're going to start on our sauce so remember that I am doubling my recipe so I'm starting with four tablespoons of orange juice if I was making just one round I would do two tablespoons and now I'm adding in some brown sugar you're also going to need a half a cup of brown sugar so I'm adding I'm using a fourth of a cup scoop here so I'm doing four of them but you need a half a cup of brown sugar I'm using light brown sugar you could use dark brown sugar if that's all you have it doesn't really matter one just has more molasses than the other so light brown sugar will do just fine if that's what you have next up we're going to use rice wine vinegar and we're adding in two tablespoons of rice wine I'm sorry four because we're doubling so four tablespoons of rice wine vinegar two if you are doing a single batch next up is paprika this is really important don't forget this step this is what gives orange chicken its traditional flavoring and you're going to need a half a teaspoon so I'm doing two of those paprika is really important for this recipe it is what gives it its color and its flavor you're also going to add in ginger you need a half a teaspoon of each let me rephrase you need a half a teaspoon so I'm doing about a two a full teaspoon there what two half teaspoons it also calls for a half a teaspoon of garlic which would be one teaspoon of garlic for a double batch and as you saw there I put in about a tablespoon I've said it before I'll say it again we love garlic I like a lot of garlic on our food so I just kind of pile that in there and it is very much worth it it tastes absolutely delicious make sure you put more garlic in there if you if you like a good garlic flavor now we're going to go ahead and take this over to the stove and you're going to grab a sauce pan medium sauce pan and start this on medium to medium high heat you want this to come to a bubble and a little bit of a boil but you don't want it to burn while that's heating up we're going to go ahead and prepare our egg rolls so this package comes with five and what I'm going to do is cut them in half because not everybody likes egg rolls and there's definitely you know not a lot of people who are going to eat a whole one they're really big so having them as a little side with our orange chicken is great and cutting them in half is perfect it's like the right amount of you know a little something extra without you know being too much to eat so I'm just going to go ahead and cut these in half if you cut them on a little diagonal like this that makes them look a little bit fancier even though I just heated them up straight from the freezer it's all about making them look fancy and look like you put in a ton of work even though you didn't that's okay nobody has to know it's all about the flavor and the taste and the presentation so I've got these on a long tray here this is from Walmart it's from the Better Homes and Gardens line at Walmart I think I got it for less than eight dollars then I'm adding in this little casserole dish here and I'm using the sweet chili sauce from Panda Express you can find this in the Asian section at your grocery store and that's going to be for your dipping sauce next up we're going to work on a little bit of a cornstarch roux here for our sauce you're going to start with a tablespoon of water and about a half a tablespoon of cornstarch give that a really good stir make sure it's completely dissolved in your water this is what's going to thicken up your sauce you don't want too much of it because that'll make your sauce clumpy but just enough so my sauce is simmering pretty good I'm going to go ahead and pour in the cornstarch mixture I'm going to mix it in really really well with the whisk and then I'm going to let that kind of bubble up a little bit more and once it's done and it's been sitting for a couple of minutes and it's thickened up go ahead and pour half of it onto your chicken or the whole thing if you're only doing a single batch and go ahead and stir all of your chicken around in that delicious sauce oh my goodness my mouth is watering reliving this and you are gonna die for this it is so very very good so just make sure that all of your chicken is completely covered grab yourself a serving pan or serving dish and put your rice all along the bottom and then again to make things just look like you are super fancy you're gonna pile up your orange chicken across the top now this is something I love to do for my family it feels special when you present food in a really pretty way even if it didn't take a ton of work to make it it just feels special to see it all kind of laid out in this really pretty dish it makes it feel like you're at a restaurant or like you know you spent a ton of time preparing this meal for your family so next up we're going to cut some green onion to top our orange chicken you can cut this in about half inch pieces to make it look a little extra fancy or you can cut it up really thin like I'm doing here I like a little bit of scallion in every bite that I take so I'm just using them you know really sliced here but you can make them bigger if you want them to look a little bit fancier and just for the sake of looking nice we're gonna put some on top of our egg rolls as well and now our food is ready to eat okay my friends dinner is done I've got it all plated up and it's looking awfully delicious got my bowl here ready to go I think I'm gonna start with a bite of the delicious egg rolls now these like I said I cheated a little bit I didn't make these from scratch but they're still crispy it's the air fryer that does the deal okay let's go ahead and give our orange chicken a try and I like mine with a little bit of that green onion perfect little bite there they're crispy and the sauce is just the right amount of sweet and a little bit of tang and can taste the paprika I love that and it's absolutely delicious now it's not Panda Express but it's really really close all right my friends that is it for this week's cook with me video I hope that you found some inspiration to make a delicious Asian inspired meal in your home tonight if you try this recipe make sure that you tag me on Instagram make sure you're following me at charlottegrovefarmhouse and until the next one my friends happy eating