Chicken with orange sauce

[redbird]

I just made this up, and it can still use improvement, but it was tasty.

First, start some rice cooking. It should be ready before the chicken. I used basmati rice, but ordinary long-grained rice should be fine.

2 split skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 orange
1 shallot
about 1/4 red bell pepper
butter
orange juice
plum wine

This gets cooked in a large frying pan, with a cover.

Zest the orange. You want nice big strips, so the vegetable peeler works fine. Set aside zest. Peel remaining orange, and slice into rounds.
Dice shallot.
Dice red pepper.
Heat the pan, and melt butter (1 or 1.5 tablespoons) on a medium flame.
Saute shallot in butter for a minute or two. Add pepper. Saute another minute or two. Remove vegetables from pan and set aside (in a small covered bowl to keep warm).

Add more butter to the pan. When it melts, put the chicken in the pan. Brown, then turn to brown on the other side.

When the chicken has browned on both sides, put a splash of plum wine (probably about a tablespoon) in the pan. If there are any bits of the orange that don't look pretty, they go in too.

Cover. Cook for a few minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

When the chicken is basically cooked, add a bit of orange juice (a bit more than the plum wine), a tiny bit more plum wine because you're not sure, and the orange zest.

Cook another minute or two.

While it's finishing, spoon rice onto plates. Put each chicken breast on a plate with some rice. Pour the sauce over the chicken. Spoon the pepper-and-shallot mixture on top of the chicken.

Garnish with orange slices.

Eat, and discuss possible refinements.

cattitude suggested increasing the amount of liquid, so there will be sauce for the rice. One possibility would be to add a little bit of chicken broth, if convenient (we've taken to freezing it in ice cube trays, so we have one-ounce servings handy, but I didn't want to delay this by taking the time to defrost broth). A strong-flavored nut, like walnut or cashew, might work well. At this point you're close to an Afghani dish called shireen palow, which is basically a sweet rice pilaf, with orange peel and almonds. (I think it's almonds--it's been a while since we had Afghan food.)

A green vegetable would also go well with this, I think, both for added nutrition--there's not very much vegetable in it as it stands--and for flavor contrast. Maybe a salad with some Romaine or rocket or such; not just cucumber, much as I like it.

In practice, the orange-peeling was done in moments between everything else. The plum wine I used is (as the label says) white wine with plum flavor added--regular white wine should also work.

I may try this with lime next time.

I can't estimate the prep time well, because it included not only decision-making, but the discovery that our shallots are starting to sprout--in practice, this was done with the good parts of two shallots, but that's about equal to one shallot. I used a navel orange, not too big, because those are what we have; it has the advantage that I didn't have to worry about seeds in the garnish.

Comments

[wandra.livejournal.com]

Ooh, this sounds nice. I might even be able to make an approximation without going shopping - it would be a yellow pepper instead of a red one, and sweet white wine instead of plum wine.... mmmm, yes. I may actually do this! Thanks.

Saute shallot in butter for a minute or two. Add shallot.

I presume you mean the pepper, rather than another shallot :-)

[redbird]

Yes, fixed.

Those substitutions sound just fine--let me know how it works.

[snippy]

I want shredded zucchini in it, but then I adore zucchini. Or small cubes of sweet potato or winter squash.