PW Wednesdays ~ Honey Orange Soy Chicken
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Okay… the true name of this recipe is honey plum soy chicken but I didn’t use plums so I didn’t think it was fair to call it something it’s not. If I had, it would’ve gone something more like this: Title/Recipe name: Honey plum soy chicken without the plums. Because that makes so much sense, right? So honey orange soy chicken it is. Or was.
The missing plums in the recipe is completely the fault of my local grocery store, which flat out stinks. I feel like I live in some strange secluded land at times. Maybe plums, or more specifically plum preserves isn’t that common of an item. I don’t know. I looked not once, but twice. Two completely different trips to the store but to clarify, the first trip I was there for other reasons and just browsed the jam section so I knew what to plan for. My second trip was the shopping trip for ingredients. I stood staring at jars of jam, jelly, preserves, marmalade and spreads for easily 5 minutes. I probably looked ridiculous.
Did you even know there are so many options? And did you know the differences really aren’t that significant? Julie and I were talking about that the other day. She sent me this article. It all comes down to how smooth or chunky an item is and how much sugar has been used. Completely scientific. Well… my store had one whopping jar of plum something er other and at the time I didn’t remember what the differences were between the many options. It didn’t help matters that the jars started to blend together, along with the names, types and flavors. I got lost in a sea of thickened sometimes sweetened fruit stuff. This is why I went with my second option of orange. Long story over. Oranges are easy to find and if a store doesn’t have oranges and some kind of orange spread, well… it’s a sad strange world.
This recipe is easy to whip up but I took a massive detour from the original recipe. I basically took the idea from the original and changed it up more to what I’d like to eat. Chicken thighs? I’d rather white meat so breasts it was. And since we were at it… I chopped those babies up into bite sized pieces. I didn’t use egg noodles and I cut way back on the soy sauce, though let’s give Gina a little credit for that one since she warned us this dish was already salty on it’s own.
In the end, it was an easy dish to make and much quicker to cook than the original but it still wasn’t my favorite. I liked the chicken and noodles, plus the added spicy kick I gave it. It was tasty, but I’m not a fan of sweet and salty food. The addition of a fruity flavor to an otherwise perfect spicy and savory dish just didn’t do it for me. It was weird. BUT if you like sweet and salty food, you’ll probably love this.
My notes:
-Use whatever fruit and preserve combo you can find that you like. Don’t be deterred if you can’t find plum, it’s not that important.
-I used chicken breast cut up into bite sized pieces instead of chicken thighs.
-Instead of egg noodles, I used stir fry noodles. They were thick and even quicker to cook since they were tossed right in the pan and tossed around for just a few short minutes.
-I didn’t want to cook for 1-2 hours. Initially I planned on tossing everything in my slow cooker, but then I got it in my head I wanted an easy to eat, no knife dish.
-The dish had SO much liquid. I actually removed a bunch after pouring it into my pan and that’s already after cutting the recipe way back.
-I added seasonings that weren’t originally called for, because I like to season my dishes. I can’t help it. I used salt, pepper and a dash or red pepper flakes for a nice kick.
-I cut this way back. Yes, I’m pretty sure we all cut the recipe back yet again. Something about these recipes and having over the top quantities. The one thing that completely shocked me was no cream or dairy of any kind?! But there was a mess… so I guess you get one or the other, not always both.
Be sure to check out what the other girls thought of this weeks recipe.
Table For Two Blog
Wanna Be A Country Cleaver
And stop by Gina’s for the complete recipe:
Running To The Kitchen
In case you missed any of the previous PW Wednesday posts:
Week 1: Fried Tacos
Week 2: Mushroom Sliders with Spicy Fry Sauce
Week 3: Carnitas Pizza
Week 4: Breakfast Pizza
Week 5: White Chicken Enchiladas
Week 6: Italian Cream Cupcakes
Week 7: Orange Sweet Rolls
Good switch though. My local store would probably fail in this area too. I have to go further out to get to a bigger store.
Ohhhh yum!
Totally not what I would expect from a PW book but it sounds totally awesome. :D
I am loving the substitution of the orange! I stood in my local grocer’s jam aisle for far too long, too. Just to make sure there was no other cheaper plum “preserve” of some kind…geez random jam flavors get expensive!
Wow, you really did go off on your own on this one! ;) I love the noodle choice though, way more appropriate than the egg noodles (that was weird). I also stood staring at preserves and jams for far too long in the store. That was awkward.
Yum! sounds so good, and it look something that i would love to eat for lunch!:)
Yumm! Perfect flavors, and I love the substitution of orange!
Orange is a great sub. I too am not a huge fan of the salty sweet. I feel like there is something wrong with me there, good to know I am not alone!
I like the noodle change out… way more Asian themed then the egg noodles. And what store do you have down there without plums?!
my tiny grocery store is the same way so i feel for ya!
I love the sound of yours! It looks really fabulous! Still looks very comforting to me. I would love to eat that!
Mmm, I love orange chicken way more than plum anyway! This looks fantastic!
seriously, even if you didn’t follow the recipe, i still love this. yours looks awesome and totally like a chinese lo-mein take out dish!! i bet the flavors were great too..can’t go wrong with orange and soy ;)
I’m really enjoying this series y’all are doing. It seems like quite a few of the recipes need some major tweaking! Thank goodness for y’all! :)
The honey orange sounds much more flavourful than the plum in my mind at least. I had similar problems when wanting to make a recipe that called for plum jam. It was not to be found in my local grocery stores and when I did find it in a health food store the jar was much too big and much too expensive for what I would need.
I like your changes! I don’t mind sweet and salty snacks, but for dinner, I just want a savory dish!
Yum! I love your substitution of orange instead of the plum and using breasts instead of thighs.
Looks so good, Rachel!! I want noodle stir fry now!!
I love stir fries like this! Great job improving the recipe & ingredients.