- Hi, I'm Rie.
Today I have a friend challenging me
to take a popular food and...
make it fancy.
Today's guest is-
(hands thumping)
- It's me.
- Elise!
- I am so excited for you to see what I brought today.
- I'm a little scared. - It's gonna be amazing.
- Okay. - It's gonna be amazing.
- All right, let's see what we are making fancy today.
- Ta-da! - Panda Express.
Is this orange chicken?
- [Elise] Yes.
- I love orange chicken.
- Orange chicken is like a staple.
And I think it would be an interesting challenge for you
to, you know, make it fancy.
- Well, you know, just a refresher.
Let's try.
- [Both] Cheers.
- Crunchy.
- Saucy. - Tangy.
- Well, you know, actually I have an additional challenge
on top of what I've already given you.
I want you to make this Panda Express orange chicken
into like a breakfast hangover cure.
- Breakfast hangover cure.
- Mm-hmm.
That's my challenge for you.
- Challenge accepted.
- Woo.
- All right, I'm excited to-
- Make it fancy.
- All right, here's what I got.
Eggs.
Asparagus.
Dill.
Chives.
Lemons.
Grapefruit.
Shallots.
Ground chicken.
Arugula.
Milk, butter.
And Panda Express orange sauce.
By the way, you can buy this merch at www.shop.buzzfeed.com.
From the pantry I got-
Olive oil.
Canola oil.
Rice vinegar.
White vinegar.
Dijon mustard.
Maple syrup
Honey.
Semolina flour.
Panko breadcrumbs.
Instant yeast.
Red pepper flakes.
Brown sugar.
Ground allspice.
Cayenne pepper
And smoked paprika.
All right, let's get started.
Making it fancy.
So first step,
I have box a full of Panda Express orange chicken.
I'm gonna do little surgery.
Looks so good.
I want to separate chicken from the breading.
Something about this orange chicken I crave once in a while.
So I separated all chicken and breading
and I'm going to chop the chicken super fine.
And I'm super excited what I'm going to do with this later.
Looks good.
So I'm going to save this for later
and I'm going to spread this in two portions.
I think orange chicken tastes so good
because it hits all the flavor.
Salt, fat, acid, and sweetness.
All right, looks good.
And I'm going to put this in the dehydrator
until it become crispy.
While it's dehydrating,
let's get fancy.
(classical music)
This is came out from the dehydrate and it's so crispy.
I'm gonna try small piece.
It's like meat candy.
Sorry, you guys cannot taste it.
I'm going to put this in a spice grinder
and make it into coarse powder.
All right, now I have orange chicken flavored powder.
I can't wait for you to see
how I'm going to use this magical powder.
All right, so since Elise challenged me to make breakfast,
I've decided to do some baking.
What's better than fresh baked goods in the morning?
I have half cup of water.
And warm milk, half cup.
And sugar.
Whisk a little bit so sugar dissolve.
I'm going to bloom yeast.
When you are using rapid yeast, you want to activate.
So you want to use warm water or milk.
It's important so you are making sure the yeast is not dead.
I'm going to set aside about 5 to 10 minutes
until it's foaming.
All right, I have all purpose flour
and I have powdered chicken breading and adding salt.
I'm gonna combine, mix dry ingredients well with whisk.
I have two eggs.
This is the bloomed yeast.
And I'm going to add-
Ah!
I'm going to add eggs.
and melted butter.
Whisk.
And I'm going to add dry ingredients and wet mixture slowly.
And I'm going to mix it with dough hook
until the dough is very elastic.
Sprinkle.
You want to knead the dough until elastic.
You need dough to create gluten.
So this dough supposed to be sticky like this.
So I think it's ready.
And I'm going to put in a glass bowl.
And we are going to proof this dough until doubled.
So I have proof the dough.
It is double in size.
Gonna dust on my surface.
Dust my rolling pin, too.
So it produced gas.
I kind of want to be gentle on it
so I don't want to deflate.
Whoa, look at this.
I want to roll this about a inch.
I'm going to cut this.
One down.
And when you are cutting and rolling,
make sure to dust your utensils.
Like, dust your rolling pin and dust your ring mold.
Look, my baby.
I have sheet pan with semolina flour on it
so it doesn't stick and gives a nice kind of texture, too.
My orange chicken batter bread dough is ready
and let's cook them off.
I have semolina flour and I'm going to sprinkle in the pan.
And we are not using any cooking oil.
So I'm going to cook all the semolina flour.
About five minutes until the bottom is golden brown.
One of the indicator since we are using semolina,
you can see semolina is getting brown, maybe it's ready.
Let's see.
Slippery.
Oh, nice.
And I'm going to cook the other side about five more minutes
and I'm going to cook off rest of the English muffins.
So those look great.
And we are going to finish this in the oven at 350,
about five minutes.
But most important part,
it's inner temperature is 180 degree.
So this is new element of my dish
and I brought back chopped chicken right here.
Ground chicken.
And chopped chicken.
And I have maple syrup, cayenne pepper, smoked paprika.
Brown sugar, ground allspice, salt and black pepper.
I'm going to mix this.
The best kitchen tool, my hand.
And I'm going to divide this into six even sides.
Make sure everything is kind of even.
Cool.
I took out sausage from the freezer and it's chilled.
The reason we chill this in the freezer
so it doesn't stick on the bottom.
And I'm going to add oil.
And put the ring mold so we can have nice round shape.
Take out this.
Chill the sausage ball.
Cook until brown and all cook through.
I have four more to go.
And I'm gonna finish this and we are moving on to next step.
So I have eggs and I'm going to separate.
I think this is just a practice.
Just go back and forth and gently remove white.
So I have egg yolk and orange sauce.
Lemon juice, salt and cayenne pepper.
When you make hollandaise sauce,
you usually use double-boiler.
But this is a tasty hack.
You can use blender.
And I'm going to start the blender
and heat it up about 20 seconds.
And then slowly add melted, warm butter.
You want to blend egg yolk first to heat it up.
So egg yolk and butter temperature is the same
so the sauce won't be separated.
This was so much faster and easier using blender
than the double-boiler.
My hollandaise sauce looks delicious.
And we are moving on to next step.
I want to add some freshness into my dish.
So I'm going to make a little salad.
I have rice vinegar.
Lemon juice.
So I'm adding orange sauce
because Elise loves orange chicken.
Honey.
Chili pepper flake.
And salt is to taste.
Dijon mustard.
And olive oil.
And I'm gonna use immersion blender
so it is easy and faster to emulsify.
I'm gonna add minced shallot and lemon zest.
I think it is very vibrant, fresh.
And there is a hint of orange sauce.
All right, salad is ready.
Let's move on.
We have boiling hot water
and I'm going to salt and white vinegar.
The reason I put vinegar is hold the shape better
and I'm going to crack egg
and I'm going to create vortex and I'm going to drop egg.
Look at this, like dancing.
Be very careful not to break the yolk.
The visual cue is inside it's still jiggly.
And egg white is kind of coated around it.
And another important thing is you don't want to boil water.
You want to make it simmer.
It's like outside is completely cooked
but inside you can kind of see runny yolk.
So I made poached egg, but this is not it.
I'm going to freeze this and elevate this.
I have dehydrated and ground orangey chicken breading.
I'm going to mix with panko.
First, I'm gonna coat.
This is not frozen.
It's chilled, still delicate.
So be gentle.
Egg wash.
My hack when you are breading something,
use one hand for egg wash
so the other hand is not dirty.
All right, so I have hot oil here
and I'm going to fry them.
Just wanted to make outside crispy, not fully-cooked inside.
One thing I think I'm surprised is here in United States,
people eat greasy food as a hangover cure.
When I get hangover I usually want to eat something light.
Rice porridge like congee, or miso soup even.
So I feel like each country has a different hangover cure.
All right, I think it's good to go.
Let's recap.
I have dehydrated ground orange chicken breading,
english muffin,
breakfast sausage with chopped orange chicken,
the hollandaise sauce with the orange sauce,
dressing with the orange sauce,
dehydrated ground orange (record scratches)
chicken breading coated poached egg.
And I have blanched asparagus and chive and dill.
Recently I learned you don't want to cut English muffin
with knife.
You want to use folk.
English muffin has nice kind of holes
so it doesn't destroy the holes.
Just gently break.
Perfect.
Let's assemble.
Gonna put some salad, asparagus, sausage.
Fried poached egg.
Hollandaise sauce.
Garnish with chives.
And we are done.
(soft gentle music)
Panda Express orange chicken eggs benedict.
Very fancy.
Let's bring back our special guest, Elise.
You challenged me. - I did.
- Panda Express orange chicken.
And I made something for you.
- Here I go.
(hands thumping softly)
- What?
Eggs are my favorite food.
So seeing this here, is blowing my mind.
- Oh yay! - It looks so beautiful.
Life is just good right now.
Like, I'm so satisfied.
Is this eggs benedict?
- Better.
- I would love to try it. - Yes.
- Oh, look at that egg. - Nice.
- So how did you go about-
- I wanted to make everything with orange chicken.
Does this mean.
- It is so delicious.
- [Rie] You see the runny egg yolk.
- Ooh, the flavor is so good.
Okay, so I taste the orange chickeniness.
It's like infused into everything.
- I dehydrated and made a kind of like-
- Dehydrated.
So many different things
and that's why it's such an amazing culmination
of just like all your skills.
- Thank you.
- I'm literally gonna eat this whole thing.
- Do you think this is a great hangover cure?
- I do.
When it comes to a hangover,
you kind of wanna have something that's gonna like,
take your mind off- - Oh.
- The disaster that your life currently is.
- All right, so let's try the original.
Cheers. - Cheers.
- This is good.
- You did a really great job. - Thank you.
- So, Elise? - Yes?
- Did I make Panda express orange chicken fancy?
- You absolutely did.
100%. - Yay.
All right, so we have one last things to do.
3, 2, 1...
Make it fancy.
Yay.
_ Yeah! (hands clapping)
Yeah!
(whimsical music)