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Restaurant style hot poppers & sesame chicken recipe
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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 11:54 am
Amarante wrote:
No fried recipe of any kind is going to remain crisp unless eaten immediately - with or without a sauce.

And to get the restaurant texture, you have to deep fry it - no getting around that. And typically the breading contains cornstarch as well.

Panda Express is a wildly popular (non kosher) Chinese restaurant chain that has the kind of inauthentic Chinese food that is served by kosher Chinese restaurants. Not meant as a snark but this style of neighborhood Chinese American food whether it is kosher or non-kosher is its own thing and is a comfort food to many people from New York (kosher or not).

For this recipe you make the orange sauce - you fry the chicken pieces - and THEN you combine the sauce with the fried chicken and heat briefly and serve immediately.

The ingredients for the sauce are fairly common pantry items

Breading with cornstarch is a typical way to get that unique texture of Chinese fried foods. Even stir fried dishes that don't have an obvious coating will be dusted with cornstarch - it is called velveting the protein.

Also when frying for best results do NOT crowd the pan or put too many pieces in at once. This is because if you put too many pieces in at once you lower the temperature of the oil a lot and so instead of crispy food you get greasy food that absorbs too much oil. If you crowd the pan same results - greasy food instead of well fried food.

This is a clone recipe for their most popular dish

Homemade Panda Express Orange Chicken

Makes 4 to 8 servings

Orange Chicken Sauce

¼ cup water
2 tablespoons corn starch
½ cup orange juice, freshly squeezed if possible
½ teaspoon orange zest
2 tablespoons orange marmalade
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon low-sodium soy sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
¼ teaspoon ginger, grated
2 ½ teaspoons of sambal chile sauce
2 tablespoons mirin - the is similar to sake or you can sub sherry
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
¼ teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon salt

In a small bowl, stir together the water and corn starch to make a slurry. Set aside.

In a small saucepan, combine the orange juice, zest and marmalade along with the soy sauce, garlic, ginger, chile sauce, mirin, rice wine vinegar, white wine vinegar, honey, pepper and salt. Heat over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally until the mixture comes to a simmer, 2 to 3 minutes.

Whisk in the corn starch slurry and continue to cook until the sauce comes back to a simmer, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. This makes about 1 cup sauce.

Fried chicken

2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast, diced
1 ½ cups corn starch
Vegetable oil, for frying


Pour the corn starch into a shallow baking dish or bowl. Toss the chicken pieces in with the corn starch to coat, then set aside for a few minutes. Toss the chicken with the corn starch a second time to coat again. Set aside.

Add enough oil to a large heavy pot so the oil comes about halfway up the sides. Heat the oil until a thermometer inserted reaches 350 degrees.


Fry the chicken pieces, a handful at a time, until the chicken is firm and the fried coating is a pale golden color. Drain on a cooling rack lined with paper towels.

Orange chicken

Fried chicken
Orange Chicken Sauce

Heat a wok over high heat until hot. Add the orange chicken sauce and cook until the sauce starts to bubble, about 1 minute.

Add the chicken to the pan and stir until each piece is well coated with the sauce, about 1 to 2 minutes. Serve immediately.


So I actually don't have most of the sauce ingredients in my home...
I will keep it in mind for the future when I want to try something different

Just curious, if I deep fry the chicken coated with corn starch versus filling the oil only halfway of the side of chicken, do you think that would dry it out quicker?

if you have any more recipes though, I would love to either try it out or store it away for future use!
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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 11:55 am
How do people find out new recipes to try?
Google?
Imamother?
Friends?

I see many recipes for chicken and I can't try them all and I don't know how to sift through them to see which is truly good
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Amarante




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 12:19 pm
amother OP wrote:
How do people find out new recipes to try?
Google?
Imamother?
Friends?

I see many recipes for chicken and I can't try them all and I don't know how to sift through them to see which is truly good


I skim through cookbooks very quickly and also have a few trusted websites that I visit to see if anything is good

There are some cookbook authors that are very reliable so I am can be almost sure that if I am intrigued by the ingredients of a recipe that it will turn out very well - Ina Garten, America's Test Kitchen, Melissa Clark - there are some others but these are off the top of my head.

I am pretty good at evaluating recipes in terms of ingredients - if I essentially like the ingredients.

I store recipes digitally - that way I can search by ingredients or occasion. It is absolutely impossible to use recipes when they are in books or clipped from magazines because who can find them - who can remember etc. There are digital Apps that organize recipes if you want to get really organized. I used one for awhile

In general I like recipes that are relatively easy and deliver a lot of taste for the effort. I will read recipes which have a lot of steps and I wouldn't try them at all. A lot of cookbooks by restaurant chefs are like this - interesting to read sometimes but recipes are much too much of a potchke to want to attempt.
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Amarante




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 12:21 pm
amother OP wrote:
So I actually don't have most of the sauce ingredients in my home...
I will keep it in mind for the future when I want to try something different

Just curious, if I deep fry the chicken coated with corn starch versus filling the oil only halfway of the side of chicken, do you think that would dry it out quicker?

if you have any more recipes though, I would love to either try it out or store it away for future use!


I don't know what you mean by "dry out". Best frying results are when the oil is at correct temperature and you don't crowd the pan. If you fry food at the correct temperature the food doesn't become greasy.
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mha3484




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 12:25 pm
amother OP wrote:
What do you use for chili paste?
I couldn't find it in my local stores


I skip it and dont miss it. If you like spicy food I would assume siracha is a good sub?
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mha3484




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 12:31 pm
amother OP wrote:
How do people find out new recipes to try?
Google?
Imamother?
Friends?

I see many recipes for chicken and I can't try them all and I don't know how to sift through them to see which is truly good


I love trying different types of foods. I google a lot.

Also my kids loooove asian food and when my local restaurant closed and my family started growing I started to learn to make a lot myself. Its not hard and much better tasting and cheaper.
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elisheva25




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 12:54 pm
What about restaurant style Sweet n sour Chicken ?
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cupcake123




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 1:12 pm
Fresh and easy cookbook has an awesome sesame chicken recipie really great
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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 2:57 pm
cupcake123 wrote:
Fresh and easy cookbook has an awesome sesame chicken recipie really great


Awesome.
I'll check it out.
Thanks!
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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 2:57 pm
elisheva25 wrote:
What about restaurant style Sweet n sour Chicken ?


At this point, that will do as well please!
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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 2:58 pm
mha3484 wrote:
I love trying different types of foods. I google a lot.

Also my kids loooove asian food and when my local restaurant closed and my family started growing I started to learn to make a lot myself. Its not hard and much better tasting and cheaper.


Can you link any specific recipes please or list which websites have good ones?
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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 2:58 pm
mha3484 wrote:
I skip it and dont miss it. If you like spicy food I would assume siracha is a good sub?


Ok good to know!
Thanks
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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 2:59 pm
Amarante wrote:
I don't know what you mean by "dry out". Best frying results are when the oil is at correct temperature and you don't crowd the pan. If you fry food at the correct temperature the food doesn't become greasy.


So I didn't crowd the pot.
I don't have a thermometer but probably the temperature was too high

Dry out meaning that the chicken was overcooked and dried but I tried frying it for less time
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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 3:01 pm
Amarante wrote:
I skim through cookbooks very quickly and also have a few trusted websites that I visit to see if anything is good

There are some cookbook authors that are very reliable so I am can be almost sure that if I am intrigued by the ingredients of a recipe that it will turn out very well - Ina Garten, America's Test Kitchen, Melissa Clark - there are some others but these are off the top of my head.

I am pretty good at evaluating recipes in terms of ingredients - if I essentially like the ingredients.

I store recipes digitally - that way I can search by ingredients or occasion. It is absolutely impossible to use recipes when they are in books or clipped from magazines because who can find them - who can remember etc. There are digital Apps that organize recipes if you want to get really organized. I used one for awhile

In general I like recipes that are relatively easy and deliver a lot of taste for the effort. I will read recipes which have a lot of steps and I wouldn't try them at all. A lot of cookbooks by restaurant chefs are like this - interesting to read sometimes but recipes are much too much of a potchke to want to attempt.


Can you list which app stores recipes digitally?
And thank you for listing websites that have recipes with good results.
Much appreciated!
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mha3484




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 3:06 pm
amother OP wrote:
Can you link any specific recipes please or list which websites have good ones?


For Asian/Chinese I love https://damndelicious.net/ her Asian section is really good and I have made her non Asian recipes too a bunch and really like all of them. Her photos are great so I flip through until something looks appealing.
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Amarante




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 3:18 pm
amother OP wrote:
So I didn't crowd the pot.
I don't have a thermometer but probably the temperature was too high

Dry out meaning that the chicken was overcooked and dried but I tried frying it for less time


There are ways to check for correct temperature without a thermometer but honestly a thermometer is inexpensive and is the best way to make sure that your oil is at the right temperature just as a meat thermometer is the best way to ensure that your chicken and roasts are the right temperature.

If the temperature of the oil is too high - the coating burns and the food isn't cooked.

If the temperature of the oil is too low - especially when too much food was added at the same time and the pan is crowded - the coating and the food become too greasy because too much oil is absorbed.
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Bnei Berak 10




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 3:19 pm
Amarante wrote:
I don't know what you mean by "dry out". Best frying results are when the oil is at correct temperature and you don't crowd the pan. If you fry food at the correct temperature the food doesn't become greasy.

OP, listen to Amatante.
And yes, sometimes you need to fry in batches. Restaurant deep fryers are larger and stronger where you can fry larger amounts at the same time.
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Amarante




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 05 2022, 3:23 pm
amother OP wrote:
Can you list which app stores recipes digitally?
And thank you for listing websites that have recipes with good results.
Much appreciated!


I don't use a specific App any more so my recommendation for an App would be obsolete.

I just store recipes in a Folder called recipes and I can search for ingredients or whatever.

The advantage of my old recipe App was that I could search by multiple criteria such as Pesach plus chicken or Asian plus eggplant etc. It also had other functionality like creating shopping lists based on recipes I wanted to make that week.
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