Orange is the New Black: Homemade Chinese Food

Homemade Chinese Food for the One You Want to Stay in With

Back to some Orange is the New Black cooking! 

This recipe is from the tenth episode of season 1.  This recipe is submitted by “Polly Harper”, a friend of Piper and Larry’s who suggested to Piper in a flashback that she find someone who “knows when it’s time to order Chinese.”  Later in another flashback, at Larry and Piper’s first meeting, he suggests that they order some Chinese food and stay in, which of course she is happy to do!

Now I did have some trouble finding a few of the ingredients for this one so, full disclosure, I made some minor alterations. I just didn’t have time to get to an Asian market.

I wasn’t able to get “Fermented Chile-Bean Sauce” or “Sichuan Peppercorns,” but I did find “Sichuan Chili Spicy Ma La Sauce” which has bean sauce in it, and then I used regular peppercorns since Sichuan is in the sauce already.

They also didn’t specify which type of dry red pepper to get, so I got the one labelled “Japanese Pepper” since it was the most Asian and least Hispanic dried pepper available.

This recipe is broken into three steps: the marinade, the sauce, and the chicken.

First, the marinade.  This one is simple; just combine the ingredients, add the chopped chicken, and let marinade for 30 min.

Next, the sauce.  Again, this is simply combining the ingredients together.

And now the chicken.  The peppercorn, chiles, scallion whites, garlic, and ginger are all cooked for a minute or so over the stove before adding in the marinated chicken.  It’s cooked until the chicken is no longer pink inside.

Then the sauce is added and cooked for a few minutes before adding a a cornstarch and chicken stock (or water) slurry to thicken it up.

And that’s it!  Just top with scallion greens and peanuts and enjoy 🙂

Taste: 10/10

This was really good.  Surprisingly good, actually!  I thought it was a bit too spicy for me, but I’m still giving it 10/10 because I really loved it anyway.

I’m curious to try making this with all of the correct ingredients and see if it turns out the same.

Difficulty: Easy / Average

I’m leaning toward “easy” on this one, but you do need to be careful not to under-cook the chicken and there’s a lot of chopping and measuring involved.

Cost: Average

This has a long list of ingredients, though many may already be in your kitchen: sherry, peanut oil, soy sauce, chicken thighs, fermented chile-bean sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, chicken stock or water, cornstarch, Sichuan peppercorns, dried red chiles, scallions / green onion, garlic, ginger, and peanuts.