Lemon chicken is one of the dishes I like to order when we have Chinese take-away. I love all sweet and sour dishes and whenever we order Chinese food, I always find myself ordering at least one! I have already posted about how to make your own Orange Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork, so today I will show you how to make Lemon chicken at home. It is much healthier than take-out and you can easily skip the food colouring too. Serve it with plain steamed rice or make your own Fried Rice… it will be like sitting at your favourite restaurant! So, whenever you crave Chinese take-out, get into your kitchen and make this, you will love it! Enjoy!
Lemon Chicken
How to make healthier Chinese take-out: Lemon Chicken.
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes
Servings 4
Ingredients
- 500 gms – 1 lb chicken tenderloins cut into small bite-size cubes
Marinade
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
Batter
- ¾ cup water
- 115 gms – 4 oz. all-purpose flour
- 55 gms – 2 oz. corn starch
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoon vegetable oil plus more for deep frying
- 1 pinch of salt
Lemon sauce
- ½ cup lemon juice
- 2 slices of lemon
- 3 tbsp sugar to adjust depending on the sourness of the lemons
- ½ cup chicken broth
- ¾ tablespoons cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon oil
- Yellow food colouring optional – I don’t normally add this
Instructions
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Put the chicken in a bowl and mix it with the soy sauce and salt. Keep it in the fridge to marinate for 30 minutes.
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Mix all the lemon sauce ingredients together and sieve it to obtain a smooth mixture. Then put it in a saucepan and heat it until the sauce thickens. Keep it aside.
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Mix the ingredients for the batter together until smooth and dip the chicken pieces into it. Deep fry them in hot vegetable oil until golden brown and cooked through. You will need to regulate the oil temperature so that the chicken cooks through without burning: do not put the fire too high. Transfer them onto a plate lined with paper towels to drain the excess oil. Keep warm.
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Dip each chicken piece in the sauce and serve hot with some plain steamed long grain rice or fried rice and some extra lemon sauce on the top.
Sue/the view from great island says
November 22, 2012 at 12:19 amI’ve been craving orange and lemon chicken, must be all the holiday food and prep…right after Thanksgiving I’m getting to this!
SallyBR says
November 22, 2012 at 12:35 amI am also a huge fan of lemon chicken, and sweet and sour whatever 😉
Never made it at home, though, so I’ll be pinning your recipe to give it a try, sounds delicious!
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
suzanne Perazzini says
November 22, 2012 at 7:27 pmThat looks so good! I agree about the takeaway one – far too fatty but I like your healthier version.
Frank @Memorie di Angelina says
November 26, 2012 at 2:12 amI see you share my love of Chinese cookery. Second only to Italian in my culinary heart. I never had the guts to blog about it, though…! This looks delicious.