Hello! hi everyone, Wesley here. Today we're diving back into our series dedicated to reproducing classic Americanized Chinese cuisine with yet another addition to our ever growing collection of Panda Express recipes, with a shot at their newest limited time menu item, which is a "hot orange chicken." A quick dive down the internet rabbit hole known as reddit led me to discover that the prevailing opinion about the Panda Express hot orange chicken is that it's really pretty mild, even for the weakest among us, which to be honest, doesn't surprise me all too much. 

From what we can see in their official release, the dish is essentially their standard orange chicken (for which we did a video on a few months back, by the way), combined with two chili elements, these appear to be dried Tian Jin peppers and red chili flake. So! for our version today, I think we can heat this up a little bit more (while still staying relatively true to the core orange chicken concept). This is gonna include a bit of dry toasted Sichuan peppercorn, Chinese doubanjiang chili paste, Tian Jin peppers, sweet chili sauce, and of course, our housemade chili crisp oil, totaling five (yes FIVE) different sources of heat in this dish. oof. Hope you try it. 

 

Serves 2-3

INGREDIENTS

  • 4 cloves garlic

  • 1 inch (about 1 tbsp) ginger

  • 2 medium chicken thighs

  • 1 orange (zest)

  • peanut oil

  • 12 tian jin peppers

  • 48oz fryer oil (canola or other neutral oil)

  • kosher salt

INGREDIENTS (breading)

  • 2 eggs

  • 1/3 cup corn starch

  • 1/3 cup AP flour

  • 1 tbsp sichuan peppercorn

INGREDIENTS (sauce)

  • 4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce (or 2 tbsp full sodium soy sauce)

  • 1/4 cup rice vinegar

  • 1/4 cup orange juice (about 2 oranges)

  • 1 tbsp sesame oil

  • 4 tbsp sweet chili sauce

  • 1 tbsp chili oil

  • 1 tbsp doubanjiang

PREP

  • CRUSH and mince 4 cloves of garlic, set aside

  • MINCE ginger, set aside

  • LARGE DICE the chicken thighs, set aside

  • WHISK the eggs in one bowl, then combine with the chicken thigh, set aside

  • COMBINE the AP flour and corn starch in a separate bowl, set aside

  • DRY TOAST the sichuan peppercorn, then crush in a mortar and pestle, and add half to the dry batter

  • ADD a pinch of kosher salt to the dry batter, then mix to combine

  • ADD the chicken thigh to the dry batter and coat each piece individually, set aside

  • COMBINE all sauce ingredients, set aside

ON THE STOVE

  • HEAT the fryer oil to 350F, then add the chicken in 20 pieces at a time, maintaining the fryer temperature above 325 at a minimum

  • FRY the chicken for 5 minutes until golden brown, then remove to a dry rack to cool

  • REMOVE the fryer oil, reheat the wok, add 4 tbsp peanut oil and long yao

  • ADD the garlic and ginger and toss until fragrant for about 15 seconds

  • ADD the sauce mixture and reduce by about 30% for about 5 minutes

  • ADD the chicken back to the wok and toss to combine

  • FINISH with orange zest and reserved sihuan peppercorn

 

tagged panda express, hot orange chicken, spicy orange chicken, orange chicken recipe, panda express recipe, woo can cook