tuftears | Experiments in Cooking: Pineapple Chicken

For my own reference... This was an experiment in 'throw together what I have and see if it comes out tastee'.

I started off with two chicken breasts (a standard package), cubed them, then put them in a bowl with:

- Some orange juice - for marinading
- Crushed red peppers - one packet
- Lemon pepper
- A splash of soy sauce

After a bit, I added a cup of peanuts, run through a food processor to chop 'em, and some Bisquik pancake mix. This dramatically soaks up all the liquid, and leaves the chicken covered in what will become the batter.

Next, I pan-fried the chicken! For best results, I should have separated the pieces and fried them so they'd be crispy, but they did well enough as it was. I didn't deep-fat-fry it, just cooked it evenly on both sides, then put the chicken into a plate.

After this, I put a can of diced pineapple into the bowl which had previously contained the chicken, and some more orange juice, and a tablespoon of corn starch. I swirled this around to scrape the remaining tastee batter off the side of the bowl, then poured it into the frying pan and thickened it into a pineapple sauce.

Once the sauce was ready, I put the chicken back in and stirred it to cover the chicken in the sauce. That's pretty much it.

Serve with brown rice and veggies of some kind. Nom!

Using orange juice for marinading the chicken made the chicken exceptionally tender and juicy, I think. Chopped peanuts added tasting texture. I probably left the chicken in the sauce too long, which deteriorates the crispiness of the batter. As it stands, it was smelling good enough to eat without the sauce.