Orange Miso Chicken Karaage

hello! Hi everyone, Wesley here. Today we’re diving back into our series dedicated to deconstructing Americanized Chinese cuisine with a shot at the legendary Orange Chicken from Panda Express. For those new to the channel, in this series, we have been taking apart iconically Americanized dishes from Chinese cuisine, and then seeing what it might look like if we were to cook the dish through the lens of more traditional Chinese wok cooking. And yes, for those following along, this is in fact the longest running series on this channel and we somehow have not gotten to the single most iconic dish on the Panda Express menu, and that is because, Panda Express actually published the recipe to this dish on Tasty not too long ago. And, if I’m being absolutely honest, it…doesn’t sound very good. Not because it’s not authentically “Chinese” or whatever that means, but honestly, it just sounds kinda bland. So! I’m gonna do my absolute best to stick to the rubric of the task at hand today and not stray TOO far from our original inspiration (while also coming up with something that you know…tastes good). 

Panda Express’ Orange Chicken iconically features the use of orange juice and vinegar along with a healthy portion of sugar, which combine to create that iconic sweet and savory sauce base that we all know and love. Then finally, cause I guess it’s the whole point of this series, I also thought I’d take a shot at reimagining what orange chicken might look like if it were a part of traditional Asian cuisine. For our attempt today, this turned out as a Japanese inspired orange miso chicken karaage, done with a bit of mandarin orange (in lieu of orange juice). Hope you try it.