Welcoming The Festive Season

MAKAN MAKAN
By FARIDAH BEGUM

Taken from www.thestar.com.my

Add some mandarin orange zest to your savoury dishes and enjoy these same dishes with a flavourful festive twist!

THE Chinese New Year festive air comes with the mandarin oranges and even if the oranges appear two months before the actual day, they are reminders of a great festival to come.

Despite the decline in purchasing power of the households, the Chinese New Year is one festival where expense is no issue.

However, while the traditional foodstuffs must make their presence at the annual reunion dinner, some of us may want to make a small difference in the run-up to the festival, especially when relatives begin to gather where the matriarch or patriarch resides.

Then, perhaps a little twist – but one which keeps in tune with the flavour of the festival – can be observed in the dishes that are presented at the dining table.

Early this week, at a cooking demonstration where most of the participants would be celebrating the upcoming Chinese New Year, I decided that a new dish should be specially created for the occasion.

Initially apprehensive of the response, I thought I would just bulldoze through with my idea and see what comes out of it.

(Mind you, I had not even thought of the recipe the day prior to the cooking demonstration.)

So, before the grand audience, I sliced the chicken thinly and poured some of the syrup from the peeled mandarin oranges onto the meat. Next, I added a little corn flour, some white pepper powder and a little oyster sauce and left it to marinate for about half-an-hour.

Well, I must say, the end result was very encouraging, with the whole dish vanishing within minutes.

Faridah Begum is passionate about cooking and stuffing family and friends with food, whether tasty or not.

Mandarin Orange Chicken

Ingredients
300g chicken – sliced thinly
1 can peeled S&W mandarin oranges
2 teaspoons corn flour
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
Salt and Pepper to taste
Spring onions – finely sliced
2 tablespoons cooking oil
5 cloves garlic, chopped finely
50g cashew nuts

Method
1. Drain the oranges but save half the syrup and put it into the chicken. Add the corn flour, oyster sauce, salt and pepper, and mix it well. Keep it marinated for at least half-an-hour.
2. Heat up a wok and put the oil in. Sauté the garlic until it is aromatic. Add the chicken and its sauce together.
3. Stir-fry until the chicken is cooked, with the syrup turning a little brown due to the caramelisation of the marinade.
4. Stir the chicken over very intense heat and make sure the fire is constant if you want the chicken to remain tender.
5. Quickly throw in the spring onions, cashew nuts and the mandarin orange slices.
6. Immediately switch off the fire, mix well and serve with hot rice.

Edited from www.thestar.com.my