Celebrate this year’s Lunar New Year with homemade Gà Sốt Cam – a simple, tasty low-cost Vietnamese dish of delicious orange chicken with fragrant lemongrass.
Continue reading“Vietnamese Orange Chicken with Lemongrass”→

Equipment

• Large wok
• Small knife
• Chopping boards
• Two small frying pans (or clean and reuse one)
• 4 food preparation bowls
• Slotted spoons

Ingredients

* – increase to 2 tsp for a more intense flavour.

Method

Preparing the Ingredients

1. Clean chicken thighs, remove fat. Cut into bite-size pieces, place in a bowl. Coat chicken pieces with potato flour, then salt, white and lemon peppers.
2. Slice the spring onion white root thinly lengthways. Slice the spring onion green stalks into small pieces.
3. Finely chop the shallot and ginger. Crush the garlic gloves.

Cooking the Dish

1. Heat a small amount of groundnut oil in a wok. Stir fry shallot, white spring onion, ginger and garlic until soft. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside, leaving oil in the wok.
2. Add chicken pieces to the wok, sprinkle with sugar. Stir fry until the chicken pieces are golden all over.
3. Return cooked aromatics (shallot, spring onion, ginger and garlic) to wok. Pour the orange juice into the wok and simmer on a low heat, stirring occasionally.
4. Meanwhile in a separate pan, heat a small amount of groundnut oil. Fry the minced lemongrass for one minute then add the soy sauce and sesame oil, fry for a further minute. Then add pan contents into the wok.
5. Simmer and stir the contents of the wok until the orange sauce has reduced by half, around 10-12 minutes.
6. Remove chicken pieces with a slotted spoon and place into bowls. Sprinkle with sliced green spring onion stalks and sesame seeds.
7. Decant the sauce from the wok in a side bowl for pouring or dipping.

Cooking with a Big Green Egg

This can be cooked using a Big Green Egg. Follow this guide for wok cooking on the Egg. Stir fry the aromatics and chicken with the wok low and close to fire ring, then raise up to simmer.

The lemongrass, soy sauce and sesame oil mixture can be cooked in a separate pan. Remove and cover the main wok with a dome whilst doing this to retain the heat.

Hints, Tips and Pictures

1. Minced lemongrass is available from supermarkets and Asian food stores.
2. There is a decent amount of activity at the end to get the dish assembled. It’s worth reading through the entire method before starting.
3. The method can be sped up by using two woks simultaneously for first two steps.
4. Put the rice on to cook when the lemongrass mixture is added to the wok. This results in the rice being ready at the same time as the chicken.
5. Sprinkle pomegranate seeds on the rice for sweetness and decoration.