Since having Panda Express, I figured I should try to make my favorite dish of theirs- orange chicken. It's fried chicken with a sweet and sour sauce (very little/no orange flavor for some reason). You mix the sauce with the chicken, coating it entirely. Apparently, it is not orange chicken at all, but "General Tso's Chicken," and restaurants just get it wrong. Well.
Nevertheless, I did look for an orange chicken recipe- and found a copycat recipe of Panda Express' Orange Chicken, by someone whom I assume is a woman, and also a mother, and also 23 years old. Her recipe can be found here. It got rave reviews, but it doesn't seem quite as good as Panda Express's chicken in terms of texture and taste of the sauce and breading.
In terms of the chicken, I used rotten chicken. Coincidentally...it tasted awful! Yuck! It made me feel bad for hours. Almost like I had eaten rotten chicken!!! God help me, I do not know what makes poultry taste rotten.
Next thing you know, I've wasted two hours of my life making rotten, overly-orange chicken. Only good thing is, I know now that you never, EVER put orange in orange chicken. The sauce is practically 1/2 cup vinegar, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1/4 cup water- if you add orange, it somehow opens up your taste buds, and well, it just tastes like really thick, really sweet orange juice.
The sauce was not the only problem. It also lacked the "crunchiness" of Panda Express's Orange Chicken. Also, Pandas Orange Chicken did not...uhh...well, it tasted...the chicken, itself...tasted less...less...well...rotten. I figure, two hours of work is worth just spending $6 and getting it from Panda Express. Right? Right. Overall, just not worth the time it takes when it's $6 from Panda.
Needless to say, my heart is broken. Aaand I might possibly have food poisoning.
In other news, I am on the lookout for a food processor. My Granny got me this book, which is one of the more amazing books I've read (yes, I've read this book), The New Cooks' Catalogue - The Definitive Guide to Cooking Equipment. It has recommendations on a lot of things- pots, pans, stick blenders, blenders, ravioli makers, pizza stones. So, they say Cuisinart is the best (oh baby, look at that food insertion bay!), and KitchenAid is a second. They also list "what to look for," and I heartily recommend the book for any cook. They'll just love it, believe me.
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