Since lemon chicken is a fusion food it pairs well with Indo chinese foods like veg fried rice, schezwan fried rice, veg noodles, egg fried rice, egg noodles or hakka noodles. It can also be served with any rice dishes like jeera rice, peas pulao, or with plain rice and rasam. I haven’t used lemon zest since i did not have. If you like the flavor you can add a pinch of the powdered zest towards the end. You can find more chicken recipes on the blog,chicken manchurianchicken lollipopszechuan chickenstreet style chicken 65
Preparation for lemon chicken
- Add chicken cubes or entire breast, ginger paste, red chili powder, salt, turmeric, lemon juice, lemon zest and oil. Do not skip oil, it is the key to tenderize chicken along with lemon juice. I used half of a large lemon. I suggest using fresh lemon and freshly ground ginger or grated ginger.
- Marinate the chicken and set aside for at least 1 hour 15 minutes. If using a meat mallet or a metal meat tenderizer, marination time can be reduced to 40 minutes. It can also be left overnight in the refrigerator.
How to make lemon chicken recipe
- Add little oil to the hot pan, fry chopped ginger and garlic.
- When ginger garlic begins to smell good, add onions, chili, sugar and salt.
- Fry until the onions turn transparent.
- Add marinated chicken along with lemon juice. Turn down the flame to low, Stir and fry till the chicken is half cooked.
- Sprinkle garam masala or cajun spice mix or all spice. I used a flavorful garam masala powder. But earlier i have also made this with cajun spice that is used to make fried chicken and it yielded good results. Mix and fry until you begin to smell the masala good, for about 2 to 3 minutes.
- Pour soya sauce and cook till the chicken is soft cooked. Sauce should be absorbed by now. Taste the chicken and adjust spice powder, red chili powder or salt as needed. Add more if needed. With an addition of all these the sourness from lemon juice gets balanced.
- Add finely chopped pudina/mint leaves or celery and fry until the leaves wilt. 10. Chicken should look moist, tender and soft cooked now. Switch off the stove. Garnish lemon chicken with fresh mint leaves. Serve with onion wedges. Related Recipes