It's not too sweet

 

A few weeks ago, a friend I met through gaming posted an orange chicken recipe that I thought had some potential.  Since I prefer things less sweet and a little more spicy, I'm going to post what I did because there were several changes that worked for me, though you may prefer the original, which is I think resembles what you'll get from a heavily Americanized Chinese restaurant. Please feel free to kick me right in the assumptions and correct me if your experience differs.

For the sauce (add spices a bit at a time and taste as you go):

• 1 Cup low-pulp orange juice (this is being increased to 1.25 cups next time)
• 2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 Tablespoons soy sauce (thinking of trying tamari next time)
• 1 Tablespoon freshly grated ginger
• 6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 dried chiles--the type you typically buy in a jar in the spice aisle in the US. I'm short and these were about as long as my little finger--ground to powder in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle
• Zest from one (Navel) orange

You'll notice a couple things if you compare recipes. I eliminated the sugar and the cornstarch. I just didn't think they were needed. Orange juice is plenty sweet. I also didn't dredge and fry the chicken like in the original recipe. Instead I used the sous vide method, which has the advantage of prep and being able to ignore for an hour. If you have an InstaPot, you might have a sous vide attachment.

I put everything but the zest in a small saucepan, and then put two chicken breasts in vacuum bags and into the waterbath, setting the immersion circulator to 147 degrees F, which works out to 68.9 degrees C and set the timer for 45 minutes, keeping the sauce on simmer the whole time and stirring occasionally.

Once the timer went off, I increased the heat on the sauce to medium (look for tiny bubbles) for fifteen minutes until it was reduced. After 15 minutes, the chicken was done. From there, I turned the heat off of the sauce stirred in the zest, de-bagged the chicken, patted it dry and cut it into bite-sized piece. I put the pieces in a large plastic container with a lid, added half the sauce, stirred, and then covered it (tightly) with the lid and shook it within an inch of its life, aka until evenly coated to my eyes.

This can go over rice, though I wasn't in the mood for rice. As sides, I put some mushrooms (a nice mix of shitake, maitake, and enoki was on sale), and some snow peas in a pan with a bit of oil and a bit of soy sauce. I'm really pleased with the results. 

If you try this, please let me know your variations!