Panda Orange Sauce atop a chicken nugget from the clown,
The ubiquitous orange-sauced chicken in food court Chinese places evolved from a more refined version served at Panda Inn, a sit down restaurant in Pasadena that spawned the Panda Express chain and made the Cherng family very wealthy. NYT Cooking recreated that original chicken, which is light years better than mall food. Try Panda Orange Sauce on anything crispy, like tonkatsu or even a lowly chicken nugget.
Ingredients:
1 c fresh orange juice
1/3 c brown sugar
2 T rice vinegar (unseasoned)
1 T soy sauce
2 T neutral oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 T minced ginger
1 t crushed red pepper
2 t orange zest (or 1 t Penzey’s dried Orange Peel, which we happened to have on hand), finely chopped
Method: mix orange juice, brown sugar, rice vinegar and soy sauce and stir until sugar is dissolved. In a saucepan, sauté ginger and garlic until aromatic, 3 minutes or so. Add red pepper, sauté briefly till it absorbs some oil, then pour in orange juice. Cook over low heat 5 minutes or so till the mixture reduces to the thickness of pancake syrup. Add zest (if using the dried zest, add it along with the orange juice mixture prior to thickening) and serve over fried food piping hot.
