Lemon Chicken

Lemon chicken is one of my favourite chinese take out dishes. I am particular about it though. There is only one place that makes the lemon chicken I love. It’s Magnolia restaurant in St. Catharines, Ontario. I am in Victoria, BC so this poses a problem. If you are out there…GO!! Yes, it is a naughty dish when I have it over there but you just shouldn’t be good all the time. This restaurant is super special to us. My family has been eating their food since I was a little girl (from their various other restaurants), my husband proposed here (he put the proposal in a fortune cookie, foodies!), and we had our rehearsal dinner there. I look forward to having it when we are next in town…but for now I have this substitute which is good but a different twist. In this case I was not trying to imitate them, just fill a foodie void. I love having food that reminds me of special restaurants that are far away from us. Is that foodie stalking?

• 2 tbl dry sherry
• 1 tbl soy sauce
• 6 ounces chicken breast, cubed
• 1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
• 2 tbl fresh lemon juice (squeeze it yourself, it does make a difference)
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 1 tbl grated ginger root
• 2 tbl splenda or brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp dried pepper flakes
• cooking spray

1. Combine the soy sauce and sherry. Toss the chicken in the mixture and allow to marinade for atleast 1 hour.
2. In another bowl combine the broth, cornstarch, splenda or sugar, red pepper flakes, and ginger root. Stir until cornstarch is completely dissolved.
3. Heat a pan or wok to medium high. Spray and add the chicken. Cook until golden and cooked through.
4. Add the broth mixture and stir constantly while bringing the mixture to a boil. Keep stirring until the sauce thickens, about a minute or two. Serve!

Serves two. You can easily increase the servings by just adding more chicken, especially if you are not a sauce addict like myself. This is great with shaved carrots stirred in near the end as well. Each serving contains 185 calories, 1.1 grams of fat, 20.8 carbs, .2 grams of fibre, 20.9 grams of protein. Calculated using unpacked brown sugar. If you want a slightly lower calorie count and less carbs just substitute with the artificial sweetener of choice for 157 calories and 12 grams of carbs.