Chicken with Orange and Soy Sauce - Easy Ginger Chicken Fillet

Chicken Fillet with Orange and Soy Sauce

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The national cuisines of Southeast Asia are famous for dishes that, to a European, often look like a string of contradictions: sweet meat, spicy desserts, fried fruit and so on.

But Chinese or Japanese cooking, for example, is first of all a philosophy.

In the food preferences of the Chinese you can clearly see an understanding of balance between opposing things. Yin and yang, light joined with dark. The subtleties of the philosophy of eating, and what counts as light or dark, are beyond our understanding.

Since ancient times, the goal of the Chinese cook has been to combine flavors and let them blend into one another. There are five main ones: hot (ginger), sour (vinegar), salty (salt), bitter (wine) and sweet (molasses). The main flavor is salty. It improves and underlines the taste of a dish and removes odors. Sweetness softens bitterness. Vinegar reduces greasiness. Ginger gives aroma and flavor. Bitterness removes odors and adds refinement. Together these flavors create harmony.

It is no accident that ginger is counted among the “bitter” flavors. To us ginger is a root of a plant that grows in South Asia, and we have no idea what the plant itself looks like. It is used as a spice and as a medicine. In Asia, ginger is used for cooking meat and poultry, and it is also added to curries and tea.

As a rule, ginger is used fresh, because dried ginger powder loses almost all its aroma and leaves only bitterness.

Chicken with orange, fresh ginger and soy sauce is a wonderfully tasty and fragrant dish. It has no fat, salt, pepper or other spices and seasonings, apart from the ginger and soy sauce.

More with chicken breast

Ingredients

2 servings

  • Chicken fillet 2
  • Sweet orange 2 (1 for juice, 1 for the pulp)
  • Ginger (fresh) 1 piece (about half a matchbox)
  • Soy sauce (light) 1 tsp
  • Olive oil 1 tbsp
  • Lemon (optional) 1 slice and a little juice

Step-by-step recipe

Preparation

  1. Prepare the fillet. This dish is made with fresh chicken fillet.

    Chicken fillet for the dish.

    Open the fillet up with a knife, cutting where needed. Then pound the chicken fillet so it is no more than 15 mm thick.

    Pounding the fillet and frying it in olive oil.

  2. Prepare the oranges and ginger. Peel the oranges. Squeeze the juice from one orange into a suitable bowl. Divide the second orange into segments and peel them, removing the tough parts and membranes. You only need the orange pulp.

    Peel a piece of ginger about the size of half a matchbox and cut it into very thin slices across the root.

    Orange and ginger for the sauce.

Frying and simmering in the pan

  1. Sear the fillet over high heat. Put the chicken fillet in a very hot pan with 1 tbsp of olive oil. Fry for 2-3 minutes on each side. The fillet should brown slightly and release some juice.

    The chicken fillet should be fried until browned.

  2. Once the fillet is browned, add the sauce. Put the orange pulp and sliced ginger in the pan and spread everything evenly.

    Adding the pulp of one orange and thinly sliced ginger.

    Pour in the fresh orange juice and 1 tsp of light soy sauce. Soy sauce comes both dark and light, so check when you buy it: dark soy sauce can turn the dish dark.

  4. Simmer under a lid for 15 minutes. As soon as the liquid starts to boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and cover the pan. Turn the fillet over 2-3 times so the meat soaks up the sauce well.

    Adding the orange juice and simmering under a lid.

  5. If you want the chicken in a thicker sauce, take off the lid and let the sauce reduce. Given the small amount of orange juice, it takes only a few minutes. Note that the chicken is cooked without spices. The soy sauce contains a little salt, and that is enough.

    Chicken with ginger, orange and soy sauce.

Serving

  1. Put the fillet on a plate and pour over the sauce that formed during frying. You can leave the pieces of ginger off the plate. Ginger has a rather sharp taste, not for everyone. But I like it very much, so I leave it in.

  2. Add a slice of lemon. I recommend sprinkling the finished chicken with a little lemon juice right on the plate, if you like.

    Chicken with orange

    The chicken with sauce needs no side dish. But although the dish is quite self-sufficient, I think boiled or fried rice would be more than appropriate.

Calories and macros

445 kcal

Serving ≈ 320 g

  • Protein58 g55% of kcal
  • Fat14 g29% of kcal
  • Carbs16 g15% of kcal

100 g137 kcalProtein 18 gFat 4.2 gCarbs 5 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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