Do you like Chinese orange chicken? Then prepare to have your mind blown! This is like a crazy spin on Chinese orange chicken, amped up 1000 times on flavor and yummy goodness!
When my son and I went to Vietnam, we went to this nice restaurant in Hoi An. We had just spent a long day biking in the Vietnam countryside, walking through the ruins of My Son, and having an amazing lunch of Mi Quang. The night before, we had gone to the banh mi shack made famous by Anthony Bourdain… and which we rated second compared to Banh Mi 25 in Hanoi.
After our long day, we started the evening strolling through Hoi An. Hoi An is a really cute little town that is popular with expats, not surprisingly. Unlike the packed and busy streets of Hanoi, Hoi An was a calmer town. There were a decent amount of tourists, but fortunately we were there in the off season, so it wasn’t horribly crowded.
We walked through the small outdoor market where lines of rickshaw drivers pushed through pedestrians. We came upon a small restaurant on a corner that had an enticing menu. It was before the dinner rush, so we decided to duck inside while it was still quiet. The restaurant was two floors and the hostess brought us up the stairs to the second floor. We were the only customers in the restaurants.
There were several notable meals we had while in Asia. Hanoi was the banh mi at Banh Mi 25. In Cambodia, it was the spicy beef and ants we had after visiting the floating village in Siem Reap. Singapore, we went to an Australian restaurant that served amazing kangaroo. And in Hoi An, it was this random little restaurant we stumbled upon.
My son ordered the duck, and I ordered soft shell crab. Normally, if there is duck or venison on a menu, that is what I order. But, I also love soft shell crab and felt I had to try Asian soft shell crab while I could. The chef coated it in a tamarind sauce, which I tried, and failed, to replicate at home. What I didn’t understand until I tried to replicate it is just how potent tamarind sauce is! A little bit packs a big punch! Tamarind is considered to have a sweet and sour taste component. On its own, the sweetness is very, very subtle. But it certainly is sour and tangy, so using too much is a bad mistake!
I’m still not sure exactly how they made the tamarind sauce for the soft shell crab. I honestly think this is the only recipe I have not been able to successfully recreate at home. And, unfortunately, besides just knowing it was a tamarind sauce, I do not remember enough of the remaining flavor profile to recreate it anymore. I’ll still try to make something similar, of course, particularly as I become more and more familiar with actually cooking with tamarind! But, alas, it is not yet soft shell season… almost though!
So, thinking about this delicious soft shell in Vietnam, I started to have a desire to make tamarind chicken. Yeah, I know… soft shell and chicken aren’t anything alike! But as I said, it’s not soft shell season, and when I had a craving to try tamarind again, chicken is the way I went!
So, I started with what I knew about tamarind ~ it’s tart! In order to enhance the tamarind, I paired it with naval orange zest and juice. I realize this adds to the tartness, but as I said, I wanted to enhance that side of the tamarind flavor profile. In order to cut the tartness, I added honey. This didn’t make this so much a sweet and sour dish as much as highlighting the flavors of the tamarind and orange without allowing the tartness to become overbearing. In order to enhance the Asian flavors I was aiming for with this dish, I added soy sauce and fish sauce, which helped meld the sweetness with the tartness while giving the whole dish a great umami flavoring.
As noted, the whole dish resembles Chinese orange chicken, but it’s really so much more than that. There is a depth of flavor that you do not find in an orange chicken dish, which I generally find to be very one-dimensional, namely ~ orange. While this dish certainly has orange flavors, there are so many other flavors working in contention with the orange that it’s hard to pinpoint just one flavor profile.
Initially, I was going to make this with rice. But I make rice a lot. Something told me to make ramen noodles, and I’m so glad I did! I topped the ramen noodles with chicken and sauce and then tossed it all together. It is soooo good with ramen! Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any baby bok choy at the grocery store, so I paired this with pan-seared green beans. The green beans, I think, ended up being a better match than if I had found baby bok choy!
All in all, this was my most successful tamarind dish so far, and I am now really excited to find new and innovative ways to use it!
NOTE: tamarind will be sold as tamarind paste, concentrate, and pulp. And sometimes those words are interchangeable. What you need to know, basically, is that you can buy tamarind in a concentrated paste (thick liquid), a block (also sometimes called paste, concentrate, or pulp), and the actual tamarind fruit. What I call for here is tamarind paste, which I buy in a jar from Pure Indian Foods on Amazon. I have not used tamarind from a block before, so I cannot give guidance on the best way to incorporate that into a dish. I frankly find that paste is a very easy medium with which to work, and because it’s concentrated, the jar goes a long way! Make sure you know what you’re buying and how to cook with it!
Enjoy!
Tamarind Orange Chicken Ramen Bowls
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Asian
- Cuisine: Dinner
Ingredients
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs, excess fat removed and cut into bite sized pieces
1” ginger, finely minced
1 jalapeño, deseeded and finely minced
4 garlic cloves, finely minced
2 TBs tamarind paste
3 TBs honey
3 TBs soy sauce
1 TB fish sauce
1 TB rice vinegar
1 naval orange, zested & juiced
½ TB ground cinnamon
1 tsp coriander
1 TB cornstarch
1 TB olive oil
4 – 6 packs of ramen noodles (depending on how many noodles you want!)
cilantro, to garnish
Instructions
In a medium bowl, whisk together the ginger, jalapeño, garlic, tamarind paste, honey, soy sauce, fish sauce, rice vinegar, orange zest and juice, ground cinnamon, coriander, and cornstarch.
Heat the olive oil in a large wok or saucepan over medium heat. Add the chicken and lightly season with salt. Cook, stirring often, until browned on all sides ~ about 5 minutes. Add the tamarind sauce and stir to thoroughly coat the chicken. Bring to a boil, stir, and then cover. Reduce the heat to low and let simmer for 10 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through.
While the chicken finishes cooking, make the ramen according to the package, discarding the seasoning pack. Drain and divide into bowls. Top with the chicken and sauce and toss to combine and coat the noodles in sauce. Garnish with cilantro, if desired. Pair with your preferred vegetables ~ goes great with sautéed bok choy or pan-seared green beans!
Serve immediately. Enjoy!
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