Recipe Challenge: Blood Orange Chicken (A simplified version of Chicken L’orange) + Meal Plan Monday Week 11

 I’ve got a very full post for you today with a recipe for Blood Orange Chicken, a Recipe Challenge link-up, and another installment of Meal Plan Monday. 

This month, Jenna from A Savory Feast and I collaborated to each create a recipe with a challenge ingredient: Blood Oranges. We enjoyed the collaboration so much that we’ve decided to make it a regular occurrence and let you link up to0! Check out the details below the recipe, and then join us for next month’s challenge ingredient.

Blood oranges are such a fun ingredient to work with! Every blood orange is different, and you never know what to expect when you open them. I loved the almost cellular patterns you could see in the different colors of juice vesicles (aka pulp) that’s inside each of the orange segments. (Note: I had to look up the anatomy of an orange to learn the term juice vesicles. You can use it to impress your friends! Orange juice please – with extra vesicles!) Their juice is a fun reddish-pink color (a bit darker than a grapefruit), so they’re great for adding some unexpected color to a dish.

Blood orange season starts in December and ends with March. (So you better hurry if you want some!) They’re sometimes hard to find, but they’re almost always in stock at organic grocery stores like Whole Foods and Sprouts if they’re still in season. I found these at Whole Foods and made friends with the produce guy while I was there. He showed me how to choose one – look for an orange that’s heavy for its size, firm, bright orange, and not wrinkly or hollow feeling. The wrinkles indicate that the orange has started drying out, and you want the juciest oranges for the most flavor.

Since Jenna had planned on a dessert, I knew I wanted to get out of the box a bit and do a savory orange dish, but I didn’t want something plain. Chinese orange chicken is such a fallback with oranges and chicken, but I didn’t feel like it would truly showcase these oranges. I started browsing around my favorite gourmet food sites and polling a few of my favorite foodie friends and someone suggested Duck L’orange. I told them that was a crazy amount of work, and I didn’t even know where to buy a duck, and I moved on. But the idea kept simmering. Eventually I decided I’d consider an easier adaptation. And what about chicken?

One trip to the grocery store later, and I found these free-range, organic, skin-on, bone-in, split chicken breasts on clearance. (People in downtown don’t like fancy chicken it seems.) I had also picked up a fennel (some fennel? a bunch of fennel?) and some rainbow carrots when I was at Whole Foods buying the oranges. (Because who wants regular carrots when you can have rainbow ones?) You are more than welcome to swap in your favorite choices for the cut of chicken, and the veggies you roast with it, though this combo really was amazing.

The last bit of fanciness I added to this dish is technically a blood orange gastrique. That’s a gussied-up way of saying you made a sweet and vinegary syrup that you’re going to eat with a spoon use to decorate your dish. Don’t panic because you see a term you don’t know. Though there’s the fancy way to build it by caramelizing the dry sugar, shocking it with vinegar and orange juice and then reducing it twice over, I’m having you just throw it all in the saucepan and boiling it down until it’s ready. Not any harder than boiling spaghetti. 🙂 

So, if you want to impress your date, call this dish Chicken L’orange over Roasted Fennel and Rainbow Carrots with a Blood Orange Gastrique (pronounced with a snooty french accent of course.) Or, you can just call this Blood Orange Chicken. You can also feel free to skip making the gastrique and use orange marmelade, or make the gastrique and use it on your favorite chicken tenders. I won’t judge!  

Blood Orange Chicken with Roasted Vegetables and Blood Orange Gastrique

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• Author: Stephanie Powers
• Prep Time: 20
• Cook Time: 2700
• Total Time: 65

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Description

A simplified recipe for Duck l’orange using chicken breasts, fennel, rainbow carrots, and blood oranges

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 2 bone-in, skin-on, split chicken breasts (You can sub 4 skin-on, boneless breasts, but will need to adjust cook times)
• 1 blood orange, zested and cut into 8 wedges (sub a regular orange if needed)
• 1 small fennel, cut into 8 wedges
• 8 carrots, halved and quartered lengthwise into sticks
• 3 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup apple cider or red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup chicken stock, or reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange zest (from orange above)
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1.5 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp parsley flakes

Spice Rub for Chicken

• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

For Gastrique

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup apple cider or red wine vinegar
• 1 cup blood orange juice (from 3–4 oranges) or regular orange juice
• 1/4 cup chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon fine julienne of fresh orange zest, removed with a vegetable peeler

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Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F.
2. Mix salt, coriander, cumin, and black pepper.
3. Cut veggies, coat with oil, and arrange in a medium roasting pan.
4. Wash and pat dry chicken, brush with olive oil, and sprinkle with spice mixture. Arrange on top of veggies in roasting pan.
5. Combine vinegar, chicken stock, orange zest, thyme, basil, and parsley, and pour into the bottom of the roasting pan.
6. Add cut orange wedges, tucking them around and under the chicken breasts, and cover roasting pan tightly with aluminum foil.
7. Cook, covered for 30 minutes. Then uncover and cook for 15-18 minutes, or until skin is golden-brown and crispy and internal temp reaches 160 degrees.
8. Remove chicken from the oven and let rest for at least 5 minutes before carving. Serve hot.

To make gastrique

1. While the chicken bakes, combine the sugar, vinegar, and blood orange juice in a small 1 qt saucepan.
2. Bring to a boil over high heat.
3. Boil until the mixture has reduced to about 1 cup and thickened into a syrup, about 10 minutes. Add in the orange zest and chicken broth, and boil for another 5 minutes to reduce again.
4. Cool completely before using.
5. Serve over chicken and carrots and use to decorate the plate.

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Notes

• Feel free to use the gastrique separately. Potatoes, onions, asparagus, brussels sprouts, and other veggies can be swapped for the carrots and fennel in this dish.
• Gluten-free: This is gluten-free.

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Nutrition

• Serving Size: 4

Be sure to hop over and check out Jenna’s scrumptious version of the challenge ingredient: Blood Orange Custard Tarts. I saved a few blood oranges just so I can try them. You could even get a whole blood orange theme going on for dinner and dessert!

Join in the Challenge!

Got any blood orange (or just orange) recipes to share? Link them up here!

Next Month’s Challenge:

Next month’s Recipe Challenge will go live on the 3rd Monday in April (the 20th), and we thought it would be fun to create something sweet or savory using chia seeds! So, come one, come all and step up to the Recipe Challenge! I can’t wait to see what you do with them. 

 Meal Plan Monday 3/16-3/22:

Click Here for the (Now Mobile-Friendly) Weekly Shopping List Printable!

This meal plan is designed to feed approximately 4 adults at each meal or two adults with lunches left over. Feel free to double or add to it as needed.  **You’ll need to open it with the free Adobe Reader App (Android or iOS) to be able to use the check boxes on mobile, so install that first if you don’t have it already.**

Monday: Paleo Veggie Stuffed Peppers from Fit Girl’s Diary (gluten-free, vegan, paleo) – I like this recipe a lot because she uses boiling to shortcut the long cooking time of typical stuffed peppers. 

Tuesday: St. Patrick’s Day! Crockpot Corned Beef and Cabbage from Family Fresh Meals (gluten-free if using apple juice or gf beer in place of beer) with a side of my Traditional Irish Soda Bread (gluten-free if using gf flour, vegan option) – Kiss me I’m Irish! (No really, I am.) I love a great corned beef, and this recipe was a huge hit last year. My soda bread is also a frequently-requested item in our house. Invite a few friends and have a party!   

Wednesday: Chicken & Guacamole Baked Tacos from A Savory Feast (gluten-free, vegetarian if using chicken substitute) – These tacos are amazing! I’ve seen baked tacos floating around, but somehow I’ve never tried a baked taco recipe before. I love that they’re still crunchy, but not so crunchy as to fall apart into tiny pieces while you’re tying to eat them. 

Thursday: This recipe for Blood Orange Chicken (see above) (gluten-free) – this recipe is worth making even if you only use the spice rub on some chicken breasts or make the blood orange gastrique for your favorite tenders. I’m kind of hoarding the leftovers right now.   

Friday: Pizza Night! Make this Reuben Pizza from Taste of Home with your leftover corned beef.

Saturday: Date Night – Eat Out.

Sunday: Y.O.Y.O. (You’re on your own.)

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