Chicken can be prepared in different ways, each time giving meat new shades of taste and aroma. One of the most unusual and successful combinations in dishes is chicken with oranges.
Surprisingly, it really is delicious! The chicken is saturated with a pleasant aroma of citrus fruits and is endowed with a completely new "interesting" taste - a little piquant and sweet-spicy. Oranges give chicken meat juiciness, a certain extravagance and bright color. It turns out that chicken dishes with oranges are not only tasty and healthy (thanks to the protein, as well as contained in citrus vitamins), but also colorful in appearance, which makes them very valuable. Indeed, the bright color of the dish is able to ignite even the most "lazy" appetite!
So, what dishes can be cooked from chicken with oranges? An unimaginable amount: from light salads to baking in the oven. Moreover, these two ingredients go well with a huge variety of products, including vegetables, legumes, some fruits, cheese, eggs and herbs.
Chicken with oranges - preparation of products
To prepare any chicken and oranges dish, we will first need these 2 ingredients. It is better to take a young bird (up to 1 year old and weighing no more than 1.4-1.5 kg) with a rounded and even breast, without gray and brown spots on the skin. When buying meat, give preference to chilled carcasses that have not been frozen.
When choosing oranges, be sure to look at them, evaluate their quality. Juicy fruits are always elastic, have a heavier weight, while light oranges can be dry and tasteless. In addition, fresh and good oranges always have a pronounced and pleasant aroma. A weak aroma or its absence indicates that the fruits have not ripened - from such citrus fruits we are unlikely to be able to prepare a delicious dinner.
Oranges Chicken Recipes
Recipe 1: Oven Chicken with Oranges
A versatile and fairly simple recipe for cooking chicken with oranges in the oven. The dish does not require any frills, but despite the apparent simplicity, it looks very beautiful and appetizing on a plate. And what a fragrance it smells!
Ingredients Required:
- chicken weighing up to 1.5 kg.
- two oranges
- seasoning for baked chicken 1 pack.
- spices
- sour cream 200 gr. (or cream)
- sleeve for baking
Cooking method:
1. Rinse the gutted chicken, remove excess fluid from the carcass with a paper towel. Spread the chicken seasoning and spices well. Set aside for now.
2. Cut the oranges into circles and stuff the chicken with the peel in them. Top the carcass with cream or sour cream. Put the chicken in the sleeve, tying and stitching the clips with its ends, and send it to the oven.
3. Bake for 80 minutes. at 180 C, piercing the sleeve from above with a toothpick to release steam. 15 minutes before readiness, the top of the sleeve can be opened so that the chicken can be covered with a delicious crust.
Recipe 2: Chicken with Oranges and Apples in the Oven
Delicate, fragrant, with a golden crust chicken with oranges and apples, baked in the oven, will give a few minutes of true pleasure. If you don’t try, you will lose a lot!
Ingredients Required:
- chicken (whole carcass)
- green apple (large) 1 pc.
- large orange 1 pc.
- one glass of Crimean white wine
- spices for chicken in the oven 1 pack
- if necessary, salt and pepper (if they are not in the spices)
- sunflower oil + 1h. l honey
Cooking method:
1. Rinse the chicken, squeeze out excess fluid. Rub the carcass with a mixture of vegetable oil, honey, seasoning, dried herbs, salt and pepper (optional). Take it away for half an hour in the cold to soak a little.
2. Peel the orange from the skin, divide it into slices. Cut the apples with cubes, peeling it from seeds. Mix an apple with an orange. Fill the chicken with apple-orange filling and pin the hole with toothpicks.
3. Tie the sleeve tightly on one side, pour the wine into it, place the chicken there and hold the second end of the bag. Send the chicken to the oven, bake for about an hour and a half at 180 C.
4. We take out the finished dish, open the bag, decorate with sprigs of rosemary and spread on a large dish, removing toothpicks from the abdomen.
Recipe 3: Braised Chicken with Oranges and Ginger
A very original dish - for those who are not afraid to experiment. The combination of orange, chicken and ginger in a dish gives an amazing result!
Ingredients Required:
- seven chicken thighs
- oranges 2 pcs.
- ½ orange juice
- ginger root 3 centimeters
- 4 cloves of garlic
- two medium onions
- celery stalk
- half a teaspoon of dried rosemary
- a pinch of nutmeg
- salt pepper
Cooking method:
1. Wash the thighs, dry and rub with spices and salt. Rings chop peeled onions and oranges. Put a layer of onion and a layer of oranges on the bottom of a wide pan (or pan) (take half). Sprinkle ginger chopped into thin strips on top.
2. Next, spread the chicken thighs evenly and pour them with orange juice. Sprinkle with rosemary on top and put the rest of the oranges in the pan. Add chopped celery and garlic.
3. Close the pan (pan) tightly with a lid and put on medium heat until it boils. After boiling, reduce heat to minimum and simmer the dish on the stove under the lid for 45 minutes.
This dish can also be stewed in the oven (kept at a temperature of 220 C for about 40 minutes) or a slow cooker (use the "Baking" mode).
Recipe 4: Chicken Salad with Oranges
"Orange Paradise" is mainly a festive salad, but thanks to the fact that it is done quite simply, it can be prepared very, very often. There will be no harm from him, but you will receive enormous pleasure.
Ingredients Required:
- 300 gr. chicken fillet (with legs)
- three sweet oranges
- 150 gr. Korean carrots (sold ready-made)
- 150 gr. hard cheese
- 3-4 boiled eggs
- grows. butter
- salt
- mayonnaise and sour cream
Cooking Methods:
1. Fry the chicken fillet in vegetable oil with the addition of salt (you can boil the chicken). Cool and cut into strips.
2. Peel oranges from skin and film, chop into small cubes. Finely chop the boiled eggs or grate on a coarse grater.
3. Lay the dish in layers: the bottom layer is chicken, the 2nd layer is Korean carrots, the 3rd layer is oranges, the 4th layer is eggs and the top layer is grated cheese.
Grease each layer with a sauce of mayonnaise and sour cream, mixed in a 2: 1 ratio. Put the soaking salad in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. Before serving, decorate the salad with a boiled egg, parsley leaves and boiled carrots.
Chicken with oranges - recommendations of experienced cooks
- When baking dishes based on chicken and oranges in the oven, use special sleeves made of heat-resistant polyethylene or foil so that the chicken does not dry out during cooking, but remains juicy and is better saturated with the aroma of orange filling;
- When cleaning oranges, remove as much as possible a white film from them that envelops the flesh (especially if you cook a salad or cook the fruit for a long time), as it can give the dish a slight bitterness.
