Lemon Chicken

Recipe from Lawrence C.C. Chu



I offer you another one of my four-star dishes. Breast of chicken, lightly coated with batter and deep-fried, is topped with a tangy lemon sauce that's so refreshing.

Yields:

6 servings

Time Required:

Ingredients:

Marinade

Batter

Lemon Sauce





Preparation:

Lightly score both sides of chicken breasts making a crisscross pattern. Combine MARINADE ingredients with chicken; let stand for 10 mins.

In a bowl, place BATTER ingredients, except oil. Using a whisk, beat continuously until the consistency of heavy cream is reached. Stir in oil, mix well, and let stand for 20 mins.

Cut lemon in fourths; squeeze juice (discarding seeds) into a saucepan, dropping lemon into pan as well. Stir in remaining SAUCE ingredients, bring to a boil, remove and set aside.

To deep-fry, remove chicken from marinade and lightly coat with corn starch. Heat 4 cups (945 mL) of oil in a wok (or electric deep-fat fryer) to 275-300°F (135-150°C). Coat chicken in batter, draining off excess.

Lower into wok by sliding pieces down the sides; deep-fry for 3 to 4 mins. (about 80% done), until a crust is formed. Remove and drain. (The above procedure may be done in advance.)

Reheat lemon sauce; stir in 2 to 3 Tbsp. (30-45 mL) cornstarch paste, and cook until thickened. Stir in 1 Tbsp. (15 mL) oil; keep warm.

To deep-fry again, raise oil temperature in wok to 350°F (175°C), discarding any pieces of batter from the first frying. Add chicken, all at once, and cook for 3 to 4 mins. until golden brown. Remove and drain.

To serve, place lettuce on a large serving platter. Cut chicken into 4 pieces crosswise and place on lettuce bed. Spoon sauce over chicken and garnish with lemon slices and cherries. Offer any extra sauce at the table.

Author's Notes

Because the chicken should be crunchy on the outside yet juicy and tender on the inside, we've developed a "double-frying" process. The first frying, when the oil temperature is lower, actually cooks the chicken, and causes a crust to form on the outside.

The second frying, at a higher temperature, is what produces that special crunchy crust.

The lemon sauce should have a sharp, tangy taste, and be the consistency of syrup.

I always tell my students to double the recipe for lemon sauce; it stores beautifully in the refrigerator for several months.


1 Quarts, pints, cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, and fl. oz. are as defined in US Customary Units, not to be confused with differing British imperial, "legal", "coffee", Commonwealth of Nations, Canadian, Latin American, Japanese, Russian, or Dutch definitions — further proof that everyone needs the metric system.

2 Five-spice powder, also called Chinese five-spice, is a strongly flavoured combination of ground anise, cinnamon, fennel, cloves, and Sichuan peppercorns.

Sichuan peppercorns, hua jiao; 花椒, also called wild peppercorns, have a subtle, delicate smell and mildly hot taste. They're spicier than black peppercorns. It's the fruit husk of aromatic trees native to Sichuan Province on the upper Yangtze River, harvested from any of several species in genus Zanthoxylum (the "prickly ashes"), related to citrus and unrelated to anything else called "pepper".

3 "Corn starch" is powdered starch processed from the New World grain maize (from Spanish, orig. from Nahuatl), which grain the USA/Canada call "corn", unlike the rest of the English-speaking world, which reserves "corn" to mean cereal grains generically. This starch product, needed here in its customary role as a thickening agent, is called "corn starch" in the US/Canada, but "cornflour" in the UK and most other anglophone lands — not to be confused with whole maize grain: That product — not a thickening agent — is called "polenta", "corn meal", or "corn flour" in the US/Canada, depending on how finely milled, and called "maize flour" in the UK and most other places. Australians should beware that their "cornflour" is starch extracted from wheat kernel, sometimes more-helpfully labelled as "wheaten cornflour". As if that weren't confusing enough, the maize-based thickener may be labelled (in Australia) either as "corn flour" or as "corn starch", so beware. Further, the maize flour product, there, is labelled as "cornmeal".

Note that whole-maize grain is traditionally, in Meso-American cultures of origin, wisely soaked in alkaline solution ("nixtamalised") to increase bioavailability and thereby prevent niacin deficiency (pellagra), among other important benefits, yielding "masa" (lit. dough) aka "masa de maíz" (lit. maize dough), also available in dried & ground form as "masa harina" (lit. dough flour) aka "harina de maíz" (lit. maize flour), and in its unground form, hominy. As further complication, Americans distinguish "corn flour", meaning prepared from maize endosperm only, from "maize flour" for use of whole maize — the former, neutral-flavoured; the latter, much more nutritious.

Origin of the naming mess: Originally, North America shared with Mother England the language's original meaning of "corn" to mean cereal grains generically (from Old English "corn" meaning single seed of any cereal plant, orig. from Proto-Germanic "kurnam" meaning small seed). The colonists got the gift of maize from native peoples, therefore at first calling it "Indian corn". Later, in the USA and Canada, "Indian corn" got worn down to just "corn", while the original meaning of "corn" was lost, locally. "Maize" is thus now the least-ambiguous term in international contexts, though many Americans either don't know that word or reserve it for variants from latin-American (and Spanish) cooking.

4 Rose's Lime Juice is a sweetened concentrated fruit juice dating back to 1867, the world's first commercially produced fruit concentrate &mdash: comprising quite a lot of sugar, concentrated lime juice, preservatives, and other natural flavours. You'll find it bottled, possibly in the liquor section. Personally, though, I'd rather use juice of fresh limes, and adjust sweetness to taste.

5 Cornstarch paste is a thin paste made from equal parts of cold water and corn starch. It's essential in many Chinese dishes (but be careful not to over-thicken). Stir just before using. Store covered in the refrigerator for 1-2 days.

Taken from: Lawrence C.C. Chu's classic cookbook Chef Chu's Distinctive Cuisine Of China, page 69, published 1980 by Harper and Row, which can be checked out in scanned format at Internet Archive. Thank you! (Chu's the chef / restaurateur of beloved local restaurant Chef Chu's, in Los Altos, California.)

Collected and re-published at http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/recipes/lemon-chicken.html by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> on Oct. 4, 2026. Individual recipes are free from copyright. Share and enjoy!

(If I have any copyright title in my own very minor contributions to this page — not my intention — they were created in 2026 by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> and licensed for use under CC0. I have thereby waived all copyright, compilation copyright, and related or neighbouring rights to this work. This work is published from: United States of America.)