Orange Honey Chicken

I love pairing fruit with savory dishes in the summertime.  The other day I made this dish, which pairs chicken with orange, honey, and cinnamon.  It's a combination that works really well and makes a really tasty dish.  This is an adaptation of an Eating Well recipe.

Orange Honey Chicken

Ingredients:

½ cup flour

¾ tsp salt, divided

4 chicken breast cutlets

1 tbsp canola oil

1 cup white wine

1½ tsp cornstarch

1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth

¼ cup orange juice

2 tbsp honey

Pinch ground cinnamon

½ cup slivered almonds, toasted

1 navel orange, thinly sliced (optional garnish)

Directions:

Combine flour and ½ tsp salt in a shallow dish. Dredge chicken in the flour, shaking off any excess.

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the chicken and cook until browned, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate. Add wine to the pan and cook for 1 minute. Combine the cornstarch and broth; add to pan.  Scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan.  Add orange juice, honey, cinnamon, and the remaining ¼ tsp salt; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, return the chicken and any accumulated juices to the pan and cook, turning the chicken once or twice, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat registers 165° and the sauce has thickened, 10 to 12 minutes.

Transfer the chicken to a serving platter. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and garnish with the almonds and orange slices.

Makes 4 servings.

This is really good and really pretty easy to make.  I had to increase the amount of flour to dredge the chicken in; it only called for 2 tbsp for 4 chicken breasts.  And then you were supposed to use the "leftover" flour to thicken the sauce.  I certainly didn't have any leftover and could barely cover the 2 chicken breasts I was using.  I tried using flour to thicken the sauce, but was left with a bunch of clumps and it wasn't thickening properly, so I broke out the cornstarch.  I think cornstarch works much better for thickening sauces than flour does.  

It also called for the zest and juice of a navel orange.  I used that, and wasn't really satisfied with the flavor.  The orange I was using was really sweet and the finished sauce was missing some tartness, in my opinion.  I have found that bottled orange juice is more tart and has better flavor than freshly squeezed navel oranges.  Maybe I'm not buying quality oranges or something.  I don't know.  But next time I will use bottled orange juice.

The other change I made was that it called for a cinnamon stick instead of a pinch of cinnamon.  You can do it either way; I just thought the pinch was easier.  Oh, it also called for raisins, but I thought that sounded weird so I left them out.

I served this over couscous with green beans on the side.  It went over very well at my house.

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