00:00:04:14 - 00:00:07:07 Erich Hi, everyone. Welcome to Potluck. 00:00:08:10 - 00:00:16:24 Phil Have you had any. Are you a fried chicken man? You, you a regular fried chicken enjoyer? As you can probably guess, the topic for today is fried chicken. 00:00:17:04 - 00:00:26:20 Erich I wouldn't trust anyone who isn’t, except if you are vegan or have some religious restriction. Otherwise you have to love fried chicken. 00:00:27:00 - 00:00:48:09 Phil I think so. I mean, fried chicken is kind of weird, no? Because it's not like it's really part of any of like, your or my, like, food culture, but still it's like this sort of quintessential, very regular craving that like we just have or I have anyway. 00:00:50:07 - 00:00:51:00 Erich Well, yeah. 00:00:51:00 - 00:00:51:10 Phil But I. 00:00:51:10 - 00:01:15:16 Erich In Venezuela as part of the Caribbean, there is a lot of fried chicken or of chicken being fried. There was like this a restaurant chain. I think it's original from Canada. It's called Arturo's. And that's like a classic in, in Venezuelan minds. So everybody remembers that fried chicken at some point. 00:01:15:23 - 00:01:43:21 Phil Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I am personally, for a couple of years now, like a little bit obsessed with fried chicken. I don't really know how it started, but I think, like, I think about eating fried chicken probably 4 to 5 days out of the week. I don't actually eat fried chicken for five days in the week, but it's something that I could eat, you know, like every second day. 00:01:43:21 - 00:01:44:23 Phil Easily, easily. 00:01:45:04 - 00:01:46:21 Erich Do you have any memorable ones? 00:01:47:04 - 00:02:08:05 Phil Yeah. You know, I mean, I can I can think of a couple. I can think of a couple. And it's kind of annoying because like, if you think of like a memorable sort of food experience, you kind of want it to be, you know, like we were, you know, when we were talking about the fear, it was easier because, you know, you can talk about these mythical places in the mountains. 00:02:08:13 - 00:02:40:11 Phil Some old women were making coffee or fried chicken. Like, if I think of the best fried chicken that I've had, the first one that comes to mind is the chicken pierogi in 7-Eleven in Japan, which was just, you know, so incredibly convenient. And you get it on the counter by the counter, they have these little hot boxes where they literally just take some fried chicken up and put it in the paper bag as different kinds have one that's loose bits and have one that's like on a stick, like a tenderloin on a steak. 00:02:41:03 - 00:02:50:07 Phil And it's just incredibly delicious. It's just as if somebody had injected that chicken with super tasty juice of fat. 00:02:51:13 - 00:02:57:18 Erich I've heard like for carragher, the the chicken is marinated in coal. You. 00:02:57:18 - 00:03:16:12 Phil I don't know about that. I feel like that must be. I don't think that's like a traditional way to do it. Like for me, Caraga is mainly chicken that's either marinated or not, but the main part is that it's coated in legal and potato starch and then fry it. 00:03:16:12 - 00:03:22:09 Erich And there is a big difference. No, no, no brain at all for your character. 00:03:22:11 - 00:03:44:05 Phil I don't think like you can definitely do it. Like I've seen I've seen recipes where they they pre marinated with like a little bit of like soy and aromatics, you know. But it's like I don't think it's necessary, you know, it's not sort of like Southern fried chicken where you brine it or you marinated in buttermilk or you do something like that. 00:03:44:05 - 00:04:13:05 Phil I think often it is marinated, but it's more like a flavoring rather than a tenderizing. From what I've seen anyway. But then again, Caraga is usually sort of like popcorn chicken, you know, it's not often big pieces of chicken. It's usually like bite sized. Yeah. So yeah, second fried chicken for me and my top three would be a chicken that I had in Berlin, actually in a Korean restaurant, which is near Tiergarten. 00:04:13:06 - 00:04:16:11 Phil It was an it's like I couldn't even tell you the name of the place. 00:04:16:18 - 00:04:20:03 Erich This is no angry chicken. So, so angry. 00:04:20:04 - 00:04:43:11 Phil No, no, no, not at all. It's. It was this nameless place. It was like a big cafeteria. And apart from, like, many other sort of like dishes that we ate, brought out a huge plate of fried chicken. And again, it was like something so simple, it was just blowing my mind because each piece of chicken was like, half of it was chicken. 00:04:43:11 - 00:05:09:04 Phil And the other half of it was like liquefied umami chicken jelly inside of, like, a crackling crust. And this was like, just like two or three years ago. So I had already spent like a very considerable amount of my life cooking, and I was eating this chicken and I could not understand how they were getting this result. Like, it was amazing and it was super, super delicious. 00:05:09:04 - 00:05:15:09 Phil And the third place in my top three has to go to raisin cakes. Raisin? 00:05:16:02 - 00:05:16:24 Erich No, no idea. 00:05:16:24 - 00:05:44:17 Phil It's a fast food chain from the states that originated in in Louisiana, I think. And they are very, very simple. It have a very, very simple restaurant concept. They do chicken tenders. They don't do chicken sandwiches. Their menu is super, super small. They only have chicken fingers made from chicken tenders, Texas toast, coleslaw and sauces and then sort of like fountain drinks and stuff like that. 00:05:44:17 - 00:06:07:11 Phil That's it. But the chicken is super, super tasty. And like, I went there the first time when I was in in Texas and I went to like early morning like 1130 and I didn't really expect very much, but I really fucking enjoyed my meal. I was like, What? I was super surprised to going to a fast food place and enjoy it so, so much. 00:06:07:11 - 00:06:35:04 Phil Everything was piping hot, super nicely seasoned by Texas Toast, really nicely toasted, but then, you know, it like stayed in my mind and I was like, Oh, you know? But maybe that was because I was in the States. I was like local, but, but this yeah, actually, I had a layover in Saudi Arabia, an airport, and I would walk through this like airport and there's a Raisin Cane's and I was like, Oh, cool, you know, like, I'll just get some chicken. 00:06:35:04 - 00:06:37:01 Phil And again, it was super, super delicious. 00:06:37:01 - 00:07:11:20 Erich Nice. Well, my, my top three is not as sophisticated as yours. Well, the first the first dish, it is the or the first, the number one in my list. And this would be untitled, which is a restaurant that already closed at the Whitney Museum in New York City. And the chef was Evan Tessler. And this was like a perfect, like perfectly crispy and juicy fried chicken. 00:07:13:02 - 00:07:36:08 Erich It was it came with a source that it reminded me of actually also, which is like a non spicy chili from Venezuela. It had like this lacto fermented flavor that sort of came through it. And this was just amazing. I remember it was the best thing I had that day or the thing I remember most, the most from that museum. 00:07:36:08 - 00:08:27:14 Erich I spent the whole day on a museum and I just remember the fried chicken. The second one, it would be like a friend's mother would from Austria, would make like, like chicken schnitzel sandwiches, super lean sandwiches, just a fried chicken fillet where, you know, the basic stuff you would put like in a sandwich, like mayonnaise, mustard and some salad that I think is just the best thing to to make a sandwich off of the third one I think it would be Arturo's I don't was I always remember the those fried chicken from from this restaurant chain it would came with like with a coleslaw salad with with your word and some pieces of pineapple, which 00:08:27:14 - 00:08:35:19 Erich was also great. Uh, yeah. What would which would you say are the rules for a good fried chicken? 00:08:37:10 - 00:09:20:24 Phil Yeah, well, I mean, that's really difficult. No, because it's kind of like, you know, it's like at what point is a chicken that you fry a fried chicken, but you're talking about like chicken schnitzel, you know, which I would consider, you know, a fried chicken for sure. And and it's like a staple and all like a chicken schnitzel sandwich at like especially like for me, it's like I makes me think of, like train stations in Germany or like airports, you know, I grab something on the go and it's like, yeah, it's kind of like for me, it has to have a coating, right? 00:09:21:09 - 00:09:22:06 Erich Yeah, absolutely. 00:09:22:06 - 00:09:30:17 Phil It has to have it has to be coated in stuff. You can't just take a piece of chicken and deep fry it and call it fried chicken. It has to be coated in the Western. 00:09:31:17 - 00:09:45:04 Erich So I would go further. I would say it has to be like a crispy coating. I mean, like like some sort of agent. The border wouldn't count for me as fried chicken. It I don't know. 00:09:46:05 - 00:10:15:10 Phil I don't know. And I don't know. It's because it's kind of like, you know, it's sort of like this. There's so many, like, versions of especially like in Asia where something is fried and then toasted sauce fried and then it doesn't become crispy anymore. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not. I mean, think of sort of like, like sweet and sour, like twice cooked pork or twice cooked chicken, you know, and Chinese cooking where they deep fried first and then they toss it again in sauce. 00:10:15:15 - 00:10:23:13 Phil Yeah. And it's deep fried, but it's glazed and it's kind of soggy. So it's like, is that fried? I don't know. That's up for debate, I would say. 00:10:23:23 - 00:10:34:16 Erich Yeah, well, narrow it down to a crispy coated fried chicken. And let's say that that's a topic worth talking about. 00:10:35:23 - 00:10:57:10 Phil Yeah, I think I think we we can we can agree on that. But like, that's the cool thing about it because from there, you know, you can take it so many directions. I mean, I think we okay if we talk about like what I feel like is a must for fried chicken, I think that fried chicken needs to be either brined or marinated for sugar. 00:10:57:17 - 00:11:46:02 Phil You know, that's really what makes good fried chicken. Also, the two can be combined. I think it needs to get coated in in starch. So in like western cooking is usually flour. It's, you know, either flour dredge or, you know, you make a slurry and then and then coated in flour or it's, you know, bread crumbs and fried or in, you know, in Asia, it's, you know, the simple starches, you know, corn starch or potato starch, which results in more sort of like crisp crackling and more like delicate coating and then those can be combined, you know, and then obviously, like the seasoning, I feel like fried chicken. 00:11:46:02 - 00:12:14:10 Phil It's okay. It's I don't know. You know, I, I have trouble thinking of fried chicken that's not doused in sort of like a spice powder, you know. But then that being said, you know raising Cane's they don't season the chicken with anything. Through my extensive fried chicken research I found out actually it's how they holiday brine the chicken that's raising Cane's which is very interesting because apparently they make a brine with adding MSG to the brain. 00:12:14:19 - 00:12:15:04 Erich Okay. 00:12:16:02 - 00:12:45:17 Phil And so they brine it overnight in this like salts and mzgee brine mixture and then it just simply flour it and fry it and and results because they only use the ten the tenderloin. Right. Which is the, as we both know, to strip underneath a chicken breast, which is extremely tender and then which suggests you get this super juicy flavor, some la ami chicken. 00:12:47:01 - 00:12:51:07 Erich Have you tried using buttermilk in the brain. 00:12:51:22 - 00:13:22:11 Phil Right? Yeah, for sure. I'm a big fan of buttermilk. Buttermilk or sour cream. So the way that I make fried chicken, I do like a marinade brine combined where I mix the chicken with a dairy component, which is either buttermilk or sour cream, something lactic with lactic acid. I also add citric acid to it. Usually like lemon juice or often also citric acid and like distilled white vinegar. 00:13:23:06 - 00:14:00:19 Phil And I already add salt into the mix together. Looks like, you know, whatever you want. Crushed black pepper, some garlic. You know, I'm actually a big fan of adding rosemary and like green venues just sliced into the marinade and all that. What that does is sort of like it really, really like tenderizing the chicken and and gives it like a lot of flavor and like, I don't know, for me, I, me, it's just a must do when you do a chicken, you know, I feel like all that part of the preparation is sort of like making this sort of like, very simple, simple thing into something super delicious. 00:14:02:00 - 00:14:06:12 Erich Yeah, Koji would work perfectly, and then I marinade like the one you're describing. 00:14:07:11 - 00:14:21:07 Phil Yeah, definitely. And I mean, speaking about, like, surrogate earlier, you know, I mean, soy sauce has the same effect, though. Like you add soy sauce to something basically like a brain, but also a marinade, you know, and or flavor, direct flavor enhancer. 00:14:21:15 - 00:14:29:16 Erich Adds. And which pieces of the chicken you'd say are the best? 00:14:29:16 - 00:14:34:15 Phil I mean, I have to go with chicken thigh. 00:14:34:23 - 00:14:35:16 Erich Yeah, me too. 00:14:35:21 - 00:14:36:06 Phil Like. 00:14:36:15 - 00:14:50:03 Erich I mean, chicken related. Something completely different, like schnitzel or something like that. You would do that with Phillip, but but I think when we talk about fried chicken there, it has to have a bone. Right? 00:14:51:03 - 00:14:52:16 Phil Or you think so, really? 00:14:53:16 - 00:14:59:10 Erich I mean, if we're talking like about American fried chicken now. 00:14:59:10 - 00:15:16:23 Phil I mean, yeah, kind of. I feel like this is a whole nother sort of like level of the debate is like, yeah, no, because sort of like bone on fried chicken, obviously. I feel like it's more classic if you like divided chicken, you know that that's sort of like a way of dividing a chicken where you get like, what is it, ten pieces? 00:15:18:03 - 00:15:18:09 Phil Yeah. 00:15:18:18 - 00:15:21:17 Erich Then this that's typical fried chicken restaurants. 00:15:22:11 - 00:15:31:02 Phil Exactly where you do it. Like also divide the breasts, sort of leaving the the breast pieces on the on the rib cage and then just kind of cutting through it. 00:15:31:07 - 00:15:31:17 Erich Yeah. 00:15:31:24 - 00:16:10:00 Phil Obviously. Obviously, like cooking on the bone, like with any meat gives you a much sort of like juicy, juicy chicken. But I don't know, man. I'm about I'm about the boneless. I'm about that boneless left. That's just like my side, my relationship. Yeah. No, I don't know. I like the. But I think that is because. Because I'm so into, like, chicken sandwiches, I think sort of like chicken sandwich just has to beat the thigh. 00:16:10:00 - 00:16:12:19 Phil And if you do like fingers, it has to be like breast dependent. 00:16:13:04 - 00:16:22:20 Erich I also have to say one of the best things in life is chicken wings. Without the bone, you can eat them like popcorn. 00:16:23:01 - 00:16:42:07 Phil Yeah. Yeah. This is something so enjoyable about just, like, sinking your teeth into a boneless chicken wings. It's kind of like a honestly, if you think about it, it's kind of like a McGarrett approach, right? Because you look at it and you think, this phone's inside. But actually the joy of being able to bite inside of it without the bones is so satisfying. 00:16:42:14 - 00:16:56:09 Erich They had like a boneless chicken wing dish just with egg yolk sauce. Yeah. Back in 2005, I remember it also had, like, something else. I like, like a garlic marinade or something. 00:16:56:17 - 00:16:58:24 Phil There you go. Straight, straight from the States. 00:16:59:21 - 00:17:31:23 Erich So then we have marinated cod. While I think that the whole bread mixture is by itself a channel for whatever you want to do with it, you can pick different flours or breads or even spices or dried herbs. So like there are like endless combinations there. So have you ever tried putting like some kind of, I don't know, baking powder or this kind of thing through the breading mixer? 00:17:31:23 - 00:18:14:08 Phil I haven't actually. No, I have. I mean, I've seen it in recipes, but I haven't actually done that. I usually go with a mixture of sort of like half regular flour and then half simple starches, usually a mixture of cornstarch and potato starch. And I've found that the best I get, the best results if you take some of this, like seasoned flour mixture and then you make you mix it with a little bit of the marinade, you make a slurry, you take your marinated chicken, drench it through that slurry, and then add it into the flour, because then you get those really wavy, crackly bits when you fry it. 00:18:14:23 - 00:18:29:04 Erich Yeah. You want it to be clumpy, right? Like when you're making the breading, do you do you don't want it to be clean, like with a character, you want to be clumsier because that is just pure crispiness once. Once it's fried. 00:18:29:08 - 00:18:55:24 Phil Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That's that's exactly. For me, it's kind of like. Yeah, I don't know. It's a difficult thing to say because I also really love, like a hardcore breaded piece of chicken that in itself has a completely different appeal, you know, because it's just like a solid, crispy, like crust. But the other one, you know, this is like flour, dredge technique. 00:18:55:24 - 00:19:14:17 Phil It just gives you this like really wild texture with these like really, really crisp sort of clumps that yeah, I mean, they're iconic. They're kind of what makes fried chicken. Fried chicken in a way, I think. What do you think about so I mean, are you familiar with Nashville Fried Chicken? 00:19:15:07 - 00:19:18:09 Erich Nashville Fried Chicken? I don't think I am. 00:19:19:07 - 00:19:43:22 Phil So I mean, like places like, you know, very, very well known in the States, for example, it's like a howling race who, you know, are famous for their fried chicken and they make fried chicken sandwiches and just regular fried chicken. But the thing is that usually you have a mixture of spices and fats that the chicken off that gets fried and gets dunked into. 00:19:43:22 - 00:20:09:18 Phil And it's basically coated in this fat and spice mixture. And for a lot of people, that is the way of doing it. Um, and it's sort of like sort of modern fried chicken movement. There's actually a really amazing place that started during lockdown in New York called The Packing House, which is a form you should really check it out as a former sous chef from 11 Madison Park. 00:20:10:11 - 00:20:10:17 Erich Okay. 00:20:11:07 - 00:20:38:10 Phil Doing doing lockdown started selling fried chicken and he has a little bit more of like a Chinese approach to it, but making it in the southern way. So he'll make like a a spice and chili mix and he makes fried chicken, but like a little bit more like elevated. So he'll take this like traditional southern approach of the super hot fats like oil, but instead he'll use that fat with like Chinese spices and chili. 00:20:38:10 - 00:20:56:03 Phil And it's like, you just check it out. He has a lot of videos and stuff like that and he talks about the process of how he does it. And I find it super fascinating because, again, you know, just again, it's a subject where it's something really so simple. It's the fried chicken, you know, it's the piece of chicken that you process in a way, and then you deep fry it. 00:20:56:03 - 00:21:26:15 Phil Right. But there's so much intricacy to it, to it can just be a piece of fried chicken or it can be something that kind of makes you stop a little bit. And you say, so delicious. You know, I feel like a lot of people are moving away from, you know, like high end fine dining and like a putting the same sort of like attention to these sorts of things that are just like very passionate about and have a sort of like emotional connection to from there, from their childhood and stuff also. 00:21:28:00 - 00:21:49:10 Erich So to conclude a, if we were to open like a fried chicken restaurant, let's say we already have the perfect fried chicken. I that aside, how would that place be? Which sources with strings? How would you imagine? Like a perfect fried chicken restaurant? 00:21:49:10 - 00:22:12:00 Phil If I imagine my perfect fried chicken restaurant, I would want to keep it very, very straightforward and simple, you know, like I would concentrate on making a really, really good fried chicken sandwich with really good ingredients is like a really amazing preparation. I would have a couple of like sides. I think you have to have coleslaw fried. You have to have cold. 00:22:12:00 - 00:22:13:09 Erich You have to. Yeah. 00:22:14:06 - 00:22:24:24 Phil And I were like, I mean, you have to have coleslaw. You have to have fries. I think you have to have fried me personally. I'm a big fan of crinkle cut fries. 00:22:26:07 - 00:22:29:16 Erich Crinkle cut fries, which I think is that fries. 00:22:29:16 - 00:22:34:12 Phil Yeah. The ones that are wavy, you know. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:22:34:23 - 00:22:42:18 Erich For yeah I would, I would use like I'm sort of style fries, you know, the big ones. Really orange and crispy. 00:22:43:15 - 00:22:49:19 Phil Really? Oh, yeah, man, that was a good fries. Talking about fries is that it should be a whole different episode. 00:22:49:19 - 00:22:51:08 Erich Of a whole episode. Yeah. For sure. 00:22:51:08 - 00:23:17:14 Phil Yeah. But if I imagine this like, like I imagine my perfect fried chicken restaurant, you know, it's kind of like what makes such a good, you know, it's kind of like just keeping it simple and just, like, you know, make it the sort of place you could go any other day, you know, just sort of, like, grab it and go and but make it, like a wholesome, you know, make it something that's also, you know, that's just really, like, nourishing for like for satisfying you, but also, you know, for feeding, you. 00:23:18:17 - 00:23:32:22 Erich Know, absolutely. Like and well, when it comes to drinks or desserts, I wouldn't go crazy. You know, I would have like regular soft drinks and beers and just, like, standard desserts, you know, like, not too crazy. 00:23:33:01 - 00:23:39:14 Phil Yeah, for sure. I'm not even sure I would put a dessert on like, maybe like a vanilla ice cream shake or something. Like a milkshakes. 00:23:39:15 - 00:23:49:03 Erich Yeah, I like a mixer. Chocolate mousse, you know, like something really basic and standard. Just if someone wants a sweet bite as well, you know for sure. 00:23:49:14 - 00:24:07:13 Phil That being said, I always dreamed of having a soft serve ice cream machine that you just do one cool flavor a day, you know, like, I don't know, like salted caramel, soft serve or, like, something, you know, just like something nice, just kind of like on the go. But those things are a real pain in the ass to maintain and to clean. 00:24:07:13 - 00:24:12:19 Phil They always give you problems, so I just love those things. 00:24:13:03 - 00:24:14:15 Erich Yeah, that. That would be. 00:24:14:15 - 00:24:20:24 Phil I guess that's why it's McDonald's there. I guess that's why at McDonald's they always out of out of the soft serve. It's always broken. 00:24:22:10 - 00:24:25:24 Erich So what are we talking on our next episode? 00:24:26:18 - 00:24:34:17 Phil So next for talking about cultural appropriation and and food and kitchens and in gastronomy in general. 00:24:35:06 - 00:24:36:09 Erich Okay, perfect. 00:24:37:00 - 00:24:39:18 Phil All right. See, in.