I've been craving Orange Chicken and the best place for it that I know of is about 2 hours away in Dallas. Well, we aren't going there any time soon so I decided to just try to make it. I looked over several recipes and took bits and pieces of them to create my own. I don't measure everything but this is close:
I skinned and de-boned 7 chicken breasts. Using my Better Breader, I lightly breaded the chicken chunks and baked them in the oven at 350 til done. I decided to lightly bread and bake rather than fry for carb and fat reasons. When the chicken was cooked I just put it all into a bowl and set it aside.
Into the wok I put about 1/2 serving spoon of orange marmalade I had lingering in the fridge. It's too bitter to eat on toast and I just don't like it but kept it thinking I might use it in a recipe. To that I added about 2 tsp pure orange extract, 1 tsp of minced garlic and some fresh ginger, minced. I didn't measure the ginger but it was about one thin slice. I heated all that through and mixed it well then added about 8 ounces of water with 2 tsp corn starch mixed in. I added about 1/2 cup soy sauce and stirred the concoction until it heated through and started to thicken. I tasted it, thought it needed something, so I added about 1/4 cup Teriyaki sauce and some crushed red pepper and let it heat again. Once it was thick, I added some Splenda, about 2 tsp or so and stirred some more. It needed more orange flavor so I put in a few more dashes of the extract and stirred it more. Then I dumped the chicken into the wok and mixed it all well until the chicken was well coated in the sauce. This made about 6 good sized servings.
DH thinks it needed more ginger, more orange, and a bit more sweetener but it was soooo close to Orange Chicken we get in Dallas. He suggested a bit of barbecue sauce, even, which would make it a bit sweeter and darker. Next time I'll add a few chopped green onions and a bit of shredded carrot and probably garnish it with those, also.
Anyway, it was excellent and here's a picture of some of it:
The total cost was about $16, which is a lot more than we normally spend on one meal at home! But it comes out to about $2.67 per serving which is less expensive than eating out. 
I put the bones with the little pieces of remaining meat on them in the soup pot and am cooking that for stock. I hate to waste!
My first attempt at Orange Chicken!
March 1st, 2007 at 11:49 pm
March 2nd, 2007 at 12:16 am 1172794606
Have you seen the copykat webside?
http://www.copykat.com/
March 2nd, 2007 at 12:29 am 1172795389
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For copycats, I go to:
cdkitchen.com
recipegoldmine.com
topsecretrecipes.com (i get their weekly free copycat)
budget101.com
recipelink.com
razzledazzlerecipes.com
There are quite a few others but that's a few of them.
March 2nd, 2007 at 03:24 am 1172805841
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Fairy74, if you live in east Texas I might consider it! lol
March 5th, 2007 at 03:41 am 1173066068
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