How Panda Express won over customers with a made-up dish

Panda Express’ orange chicken, the quintessential American Chinese invention that helped bolster a nationwide craze for Chinese takeout, turns 35 on Friday.

The ubiquitous restaurant offering, while deceptive simple, marries a host of Chinese regional flavors with American ingredients.

It all started in Hawaii. In 1987, executive chef Andy Kao invented orange chicken on a business trip to open the state’s first Panda Express restaurant. Inspired by the citrus on the island and the locals’ love for meat dishes, Kao decided to coat an American classic, fried chicken, with a tangy, sweet and spicy sauce — a traditional flavor combination in the Chinese city of Yang Zhou.

Kao initially used bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts to make the dish but soon learned that Americans preferred boneless, skinless meat in bite-size pieces. To accommodate their milder palates, he also removed whole dried chilis to dial down the spice.