Speaker 1: All right, guys, welcome to Always Hungry from My Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: My name is Bobby Flay, and I'm here with my
Speaker 1: daughter and co host. I'm Sophie, and I'm Always Hungry.
Speaker 1: Sophie and I gather around my stove to cook together. Well,
Speaker 1: you cook, I asked the questions, and eat the food
Speaker 1: if there's any food left. We come to the table
Speaker 1: together to share a meal, connect as a family, and
Speaker 1: tell the stories that matter to us. Today we're talking
Speaker 1: about one of our favorite food groups. I mean, every
Speaker 1: culture has fried chicken, a version of a fried chicken.
Speaker 1: I mean, what could be better? Hot oil, a great batter,
Speaker 1: and fried away fried chicken. Everybody, Yes, let's get it.
Speaker 1: We're making some fried chicken. Make some fried chicken, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna use chicken thighs. Well, we can use the
Speaker 1: whole chicken obviously, but I just want to make some
Speaker 1: chicken th today. So basically what I'm doing is I have,
Speaker 1: if you notice, I have this in some buttermilk chicken
Speaker 1: and yeah, and some buttermilk and some buttermilk, and then
Speaker 1: I'm going to make a dredge mixture of some all
Speaker 1: purpose flour some coin starch, which helps to make it crispy,
Speaker 1: and then I'm gonna put some panco bread comes in
Speaker 1: here as well for some texture. All of that gets seasoned.
Speaker 1: Let's see what we got here. I'm gonna use some
Speaker 1: garlic powder, granulated garlic rather, and maybe some fennel seed.
Speaker 1: How does that sound sound great? And a little how
Speaker 1: about some tumoric too. The tumork is not going to
Speaker 1: give it a ton of flavor, but it's gonna make
Speaker 1: it a cool color. Just a little bit of tumeric.
Speaker 1: You like that deal? Yeah? Um, I use this when
Speaker 1: I make my fried chicken sandwiches for Bobby's burgers. Little
Speaker 1: fennel seed, granulated garlic, and then some salt and pepper,
Speaker 1: and I think maybe some paprika as well. What do
Speaker 1: you think about that? Sounds really good? Fried chicken? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean fried chicken is um it's one of the
Speaker 1: great things on earth. Yep. It's crispy, it's chicken fried,
Speaker 1: it's very crevable. It's so it's so good. But you know,
Speaker 1: when uh, when I think of fried chicken, the first
Speaker 1: thing I think it was sort of Southern fried chicken,
Speaker 1: you know, usually has it's very simple, you know something.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's maybe soaked in buttermilk. It's then you know,
Speaker 1: then there's a flower dredge and thrown in some some
Speaker 1: hot oil and fried. And that's basically, you know, the
Speaker 1: very basic, you know, fried chicken. But and there's different
Speaker 1: there's different styles of fried chicken all over the South,
Speaker 1: of course, and then there's different styles of fried chicken
Speaker 1: all over the United States based on the region. But
Speaker 1: there's also in my opinion, every culture in the world
Speaker 1: has a version of a chicken that's fried. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna just talk to you a little bit about I
Speaker 1: have a a method of cooking fried chicken that you know,
Speaker 1: it might be looked down upon by fried chicken aficionados.
Speaker 1: And there's a couple of different ways of fried chicken.
Speaker 1: You can deep fried chicken, of course, you can also
Speaker 1: shallow fried chicken or skill it fried chicken like in
Speaker 1: a cast iron pant, where it's like shallow oil, so
Speaker 1: it's like it's just coming up halfway up the chicken.
Speaker 1: So you're basically frying one side at a time. I mean,
Speaker 1: deep fried seems to be more evenly cooked, and it
Speaker 1: keeps and and the it keeps the chicken the shape
Speaker 1: of the chicken when you skill it fried chicken. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it gets flatter depending on the cut. You know, there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of decisions you have to make. Are you
Speaker 1: going to use skin on, bone in? Are you going
Speaker 1: to use the you know, all pieces of the chicken,
Speaker 1: or you're just gonna use thighs, A you're just gonna
Speaker 1: use breast. Is it gonna be boneless chicken? I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different ways you could go, and
Speaker 1: every one of those decisions changes you're cooking time and
Speaker 1: technique and method. It just does. And so one of
Speaker 1: the things that I like to do is cut up,
Speaker 1: cut up a whole chicken into like like eight pieces.
Speaker 1: So the breast has two pieces, bone in, skin on,
Speaker 1: the thighs are their own two pieces, So that's two
Speaker 1: for that's six, and then the legs and the chicken
Speaker 1: legs that's eight. If you want to throw the wings
Speaker 1: in there, obviously that makes sense to maybe Now you're
Speaker 1: a tent. So then I soak it in buttermilk. And
Speaker 1: then here's the crazy part. I After I soak it
Speaker 1: in buttermilk, I take most of the excess of with
Speaker 1: the butter milk off and I put it on the
Speaker 1: sheet tray. And I just cover it with a little
Speaker 1: bit of foil and I put it in the oven
Speaker 1: and I basically almost kind of steam baked the chicken
Speaker 1: until it's about three quarters of the way done. That's interesting,
Speaker 1: it's a little unorthodox. And then I and then I
Speaker 1: take my dredge so it could be a mixture of
Speaker 1: flour and corn starch and some I use. I let
Speaker 1: to use panco bread crumbs because it gives them a
Speaker 1: nice texture. And then some seasonings, so like granulated garlic,
Speaker 1: grandulate onion, some paprika. Maybe you can put some cayenne
Speaker 1: if you want to make it spicy. Sometimes I put
Speaker 1: some tumeric in there to give it this sort of
Speaker 1: like golden color. It's up to you. But the most
Speaker 1: important thing is this is this kind of crazy technique
Speaker 1: that I do that I cook it re quarters of
Speaker 1: the way before I fry it. And really what I'm
Speaker 1: doing there, yes, really what I'm doing. And then I
Speaker 1: lit a cool and really what I'm doing there is
Speaker 1: I'm guaranteeing one thing. I'm guaranteeing that the chicken is
Speaker 1: going to be cooked properly inside. Is this what you
Speaker 1: do with Bobby's No, because that's just a chicken breast sandwich,
Speaker 1: different meat. Yeah, that it just goes quicker. This is
Speaker 1: this is bony skin on Okay, like what used to
Speaker 1: serve when you serve it at b A. It's one
Speaker 1: of the like fried chicken is one of these things
Speaker 1: that we think of as a very simple dish that
Speaker 1: could that executed. Getting the execution right is very difficult. Look,
Speaker 1: there's two things that have to happen. You wanted crispy
Speaker 1: and golden brown. Golden crispy outside, it's key to fried chicken.
Speaker 1: But it has to be cooked perfectly inside. Getting that
Speaker 1: temperature right is not as easy as saying, oh, put
Speaker 1: it into three six or three seventy or whatever whatever
Speaker 1: it is. There's too many variables. The variables are how
Speaker 1: much oil do you have the pan? How which pan
Speaker 1: are you using, how high is the oil? How big
Speaker 1: is the chicken? Yeah, no, that's what I was saying.
Speaker 1: Think about how thick is your dredging, your battery. There's
Speaker 1: a lot going on too, variables. So what I'm saying
Speaker 1: is like kind of like taking advantage making it make
Speaker 1: it a little easier and so and so what I
Speaker 1: like to and this way it doesn't fry as long too.
Speaker 1: So all I'm doing is I turn the heat up
Speaker 1: a little bit more on the fryer so that I
Speaker 1: get a crispier result, a crispier and it's actually a
Speaker 1: lighter result because I don't overdo it, because I don't
Speaker 1: want to cook too much longer in the in the oil,
Speaker 1: because I'm three quarters of the way there before I start,
Speaker 1: So I just I get it has a very lights
Speaker 1: almost stealth like crust on the outside, and then I
Speaker 1: throw it into the fryer, into the into the hot oil,
Speaker 1: and then all I'm looking for is crispy, golden brown.
Speaker 1: I know that the inside will be cooked. Right. What
Speaker 1: do you think? What do you think about that? I
Speaker 1: think it's smart. I think that's a good idea. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to cook in a canoe oil chicken self.
Speaker 1: You've got some canola oil going on the stove, of course,
Speaker 1: sat from pepper, so we mix this up so the
Speaker 1: oil should be about three sixty degrees something like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna take the chicken out, put it in
Speaker 1: the dredge. And what I do is I just take
Speaker 1: a little bit more of the butter milk, and I
Speaker 1: wet it after I dredge it, so that it's one
Speaker 1: of these moves that it's hard to even talk about,
Speaker 1: like in a recipe book, because you just want to
Speaker 1: just kind of like throw a little dash of the
Speaker 1: buttered milk back in there so that it creates these
Speaker 1: like crevices. Is frying, definitely frying. You know, the more
Speaker 1: chicken you put in there and the oil, the more
Speaker 1: it's going to cool down that oil. So you don't
Speaker 1: want to overfill it. Got it smells really good. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the garlic and all the spices I put it there.
Speaker 1: Do I Fried chicken, My gosh, I love frid chicken. Chicken,
Speaker 1: Fried chicken sandwiches my favorite. I was kind of smiling
Speaker 1: before because for some reason, I feel like I remember
Speaker 1: there being like an iconic episode of throw Down and
Speaker 1: Fried Chicken. Oh it's Sarah Toga and I is it
Speaker 1: And I just looked it up, and like the whole
Speaker 1: episode is on YouTube and you just look so young
Speaker 1: in this. Okay, we're not talking about that, Sophie. I know,
Speaker 1: well I looked at the Fried Chicken episode and you
Speaker 1: look like a baby. What do you is that fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago? I don't it doesn't say when it originally aired.
Speaker 1: That was swearing a lot of makeup. That was in
Speaker 1: sara Toga Springs, New York. Did you win? That's Hattie's
Speaker 1: Fried Chicken the Best. Well, Hattie's there there. I actually
Speaker 1: I never met her, but I think I actually saw Hattie.
Speaker 1: I think she was like, you know, in a in
Speaker 1: an advanced aged eighties early night. I can't remember how
Speaker 1: old she was when she passed away. But Hattie was
Speaker 1: a woman in Saratoga Springs, and uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: go to Saratoga every year. It's where the best thoroughbred
Speaker 1: racing is. It's only for six months, six weeks a year,
Speaker 1: and there's a place called Hattie's. Hattie doesn't. She's not
Speaker 1: around anymore. But and the I think he used to
Speaker 1: be called Hattie's Chicken Hatch originally. And then this family
Speaker 1: bought it. This is the second or third family since
Speaker 1: Hattie had passed away that has owned it. And basically
Speaker 1: you buy the place and you get the recipe, and uh,
Speaker 1: his name is Justin. He's the chef, and uh he
Speaker 1: beat me with Hattie's recipe. I was happy to lose,
Speaker 1: like because you know, it is so good, so so good.
Speaker 1: But like you know that place it's it's it's Southern
Speaker 1: fried chicken, you know, but it's upstate New York. But everybody,
Speaker 1: everybody goes there for the fried chicken so good. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know, then there's all kinds of other fried chicken.
Speaker 1: Like I was looking at there's a Mexican style fried
Speaker 1: fried chicken. A recipe name a recipe from this woman
Speaker 1: named Patti Hinitch, who who is an amazing Mixic Mexican cook.
Speaker 1: She's judged b Bobby Flay a bunch of times. She's
Speaker 1: so good. She's so knowledgeable. You know. They put like
Speaker 1: chili the arball and Wahio chili is like in the
Speaker 1: in the in the in with the buttermilk, so it
Speaker 1: gets that red chili flavor and then they fry it.
Speaker 1: You know, something like that's good. You know, Korean fried
Speaker 1: chicken has like just become a phenomenon. I love Korean
Speaker 1: fried chicken. I ate so much Korean fried chicken in Korea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: kore fried chicken and beer. You know that they had
Speaker 1: that koji jong ingredients red pepper, Korean red pepper that
Speaker 1: is just so good. And it's like you know, and
Speaker 1: they make like some kind of glaze with it to
Speaker 1: put on the chicken. Love that I used to make
Speaker 1: bluecorn fried chicken a lot. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: bluecoin meal with flour. The problem with corn meal and
Speaker 1: fried chicken is that it breaks up. It's sort of
Speaker 1: it's sort of crackles a little too much. So it's
Speaker 1: it really is mostly flour and then a little corn
Speaker 1: meal is really the way to do it, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of a Southwestern version of of of
Speaker 1: of fried chicken. Um. I went to Bone Appetite site
Speaker 1: and they had like a bunch a list of like
Speaker 1: their favorite fried chicken recipes, so I want me to
Speaker 1: give you a few. So one of them is a
Speaker 1: glaze fried chicken with old Bay and I can't remind
Speaker 1: writing lemon. I think it says len. Also old Bay
Speaker 1: seasoning is that Baltimore, that Maryland, that Baltimore Maryland season
Speaker 1: and that they put on crabs. So it's got like,
Speaker 1: you know, paprika and black pepper and garlic, an onion
Speaker 1: and proprietary so exactly what's in it, but you know
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's got celery seed of some sort
Speaker 1: and for sure, definitely so so good there's a there's
Speaker 1: another one. This one sounds really good. Garlic and ginger
Speaker 1: fried chicken. So fresh garl like fresh ginger, or you know,
Speaker 1: you just crush a bunch of it. Put it, you know,
Speaker 1: in with the chicken. Chicken. Let it marinade. So good.
Speaker 1: That sounds delicious. Yea five spice fried chicken. So Chinese
Speaker 1: five spice? You know, so we have like star a
Speaker 1: nis in it and other ingredients for other ingredients. What's
Speaker 1: what's Chinese five spice? I don't know. Look it up.
Speaker 1: Let me look it up. Um, you know. And here's
Speaker 1: one that here's something that a lot of people do
Speaker 1: instead of instead of buttermilk, they they soaked the chicken
Speaker 1: before they dredge it and pickle brine. So like you
Speaker 1: have your pickled jar. Look at your pickle jar and
Speaker 1: your refrigerator right now, everybody, go to your refrigerator right now.
Speaker 1: Look at your pickle jar that's half empty and you
Speaker 1: have all this pickling liquid. Do not throw that out.
Speaker 1: That is such a good thing to use. You can
Speaker 1: marrinate your chicken in it. I love it for potato salad.
Speaker 1: You make really good potatoes. Use it in my potatoes.
Speaker 1: You make messed up good potato salad. I'm glad to
Speaker 1: hear that. Hear that, well, I hear that that's not
Speaker 1: a fake podcast. Sound those are frying chicken, That is Carisby.
Speaker 1: I would often to make you friad chicken sailing, but
Speaker 1: I don't have any cole slaw. It is imperative. How
Speaker 1: many is this in here? Well, it's a great questions.
Speaker 1: You have to remember like this, These these don't even
Speaker 1: have bones in them. They're they're boneless chicken thighs. You
Speaker 1: and I are chicken by freaks. We love it freaks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we love chicken thighes. So listen, So what do you
Speaker 1: think the two most important things about frying chicken on
Speaker 1: and you're frying it, um, the temperature of the oil. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm saying in terms of the chicken itself, what are
Speaker 1: you looking for the crispinus while you're looking for crispy
Speaker 1: and golden brown on the outside. So it's got to
Speaker 1: be cooked through. Oh yeah, of course it's not an
Speaker 1: easy feet yes, you know. I mean it's it's really
Speaker 1: easy to kind of overcook the chicken on the outside, yea,
Speaker 1: on the inside, you know. So it's like that's why
Speaker 1: the temperature is really kay. Come, these are looking pretty
Speaker 1: golden brown. That was great, dad, I love fried chicken. Okay,
Speaker 1: these have been frying for about eight nine minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll take him out. You can put it either on
Speaker 1: a rack or at least some paper towels, and then
Speaker 1: a little salt and pettle on top. Always. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can see the oil is like yellow. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: what I do is I take chicken. I put some
Speaker 1: of this spicy honey on top. Pretty little vest that's
Speaker 1: so pretty. Get the fork. I'm so excited. I'm more
Speaker 1: scited about this than you're Pettie Burger crispy. That is
Speaker 1: so good. Yeah, the honey is so important. I agree
Speaker 1: from my childhood, it's like, you know, you have like
Speaker 1: fried chicken with honey. Do you ever have the Popeyes
Speaker 1: fried chicken sandwich? Have you? Like? Here's better? Do? I absolutely? Then,
Speaker 1: of course this thing is like taken awful across the country.
Speaker 1: But Nashville hot fried chicken and this recipe the six
Speaker 1: tablespoons of cayenne pepper. Let me just say something, WHOA
Speaker 1: during my years of throwdown, this is a long time ago. Now,
Speaker 1: we went to Nashville and we did we did a
Speaker 1: I don't even think it was Throwdown. I think it
Speaker 1: was Food Nation, which is before Throwdown. Food Nation was
Speaker 1: this travel show where I went around the country and
Speaker 1: let's discover the food culture of a different place every time.
Speaker 1: And we were really young then. And uh. We went
Speaker 1: to Nashville. So I tried the hot chicken, the hot
Speaker 1: hot hot chicken, cause you can get it in different degrees.
Speaker 1: I couldn't feel my face. It was so incredibly painful.
Speaker 1: So like in this in the Bunappe Tea one, the
Speaker 1: Nashville Hot fried chicken has six tablespoons of cayenne, six
Speaker 1: spoons of cayenne pepper. I don't know, it seems like
Speaker 1: it seems like a lot to me. Have you had
Speaker 1: Howland raised Nashville fried chickens in Chinatown in Los Angeles? No, Oh,
Speaker 1: it is so good. It's just the one that they
Speaker 1: line up for. Yeah, the line is crazy. Okay, have
Speaker 1: you had it? Yeah, it's delicious. We we've waited in
Speaker 1: that line, you and I not not you and I
Speaker 1: mean my friends. We have weighted in that line. All right,
Speaker 1: I'll have to do that, Howling Rays, I'm there. We
Speaker 1: went to Blue Ribbons. I like blue ribbons fried chicken.
Speaker 1: They actually then they actually opened a blue ribbon fried chicken.
Speaker 1: What what did they say? They make their their fried
Speaker 1: chicken with mazza mazza meal to put matza meal in
Speaker 1: the flower. That was so interesting to me. Instead of
Speaker 1: bread crumbs, they use mat so so Bruce and Eric
Speaker 1: Bromberger did Jewish guys, so you know, obviously they grew
Speaker 1: up beating a lot of matsumule. Cool idea. It totally
Speaker 1: works because it's like bread crumbs. I mean the same
Speaker 1: same principle. Okay, we have to talk about we're talking
Speaker 1: about fried chicken. We have to talk about this this
Speaker 1: fried chicken sandwich phenomenon. What is going on? Like it's
Speaker 1: like all of a sudden about a year and a
Speaker 1: half ago, like the world discovered that you can make
Speaker 1: a fried chicken sandwich. Like, why all of a sudden?
Speaker 1: What happened? Do you think it's just marketing by Popeyes?
Speaker 1: I think it must have been. Yeah, I mean the
Speaker 1: fried chicken sandwich is just skyrocketed. I mean, they created
Speaker 1: a shortage of chicken. It's insane just by that one sandwich.
Speaker 1: Are you a fan of it? Of the Popeye fried
Speaker 1: chicken sandwich. Yeah, yeah, I think it's good. I think
Speaker 1: it's good. But there's so many different fried chicken sandwiches
Speaker 1: to try now that it's kind of fun, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I really like the fried chicken sandwich at the
Speaker 1: window in Venice. There's a new spot that just opened
Speaker 1: up near me. I want to say. It's called day Bird.
Speaker 1: Let me say this isn't it? Oh you know it is.
Speaker 1: It's called day Bird. The chicken. Yeah, there you go,
Speaker 1: so it Bobby's burgers are fried chicken sandwich is taken
Speaker 1: off as well. I mean yeah, I mean we sell
Speaker 1: burgers and we sell fried chicken sandwiches, and basically it's
Speaker 1: the fried chicken that I've made for you today, except
Speaker 1: we use chicken breast, and we served with pickles and
Speaker 1: a delicious coleslaw. And then I have this sauce that
Speaker 1: I think is the killer ingredient of the entire dish,
Speaker 1: which is it's that Ahi am Ario. Yeah, that sauce
Speaker 1: was so good. It's that it's that South American chili
Speaker 1: pepper with mayonnaise some lime juice, and it's so good.
Speaker 1: Some people think it's a little spicy because the spice
Speaker 1: in it it's the it's that chili pepper. It's that
Speaker 1: yellow chili. But it's I didn't think that was well,
Speaker 1: I guess we put it in We put it in honey.
Speaker 1: So this is in mayonnaise, which is also going to
Speaker 1: quell the heat. But it's um, you know, I think
Speaker 1: you have to have some sort of spicy mayo on
Speaker 1: a fried chicken sandwich. Speaking of Hell and Ray's, when
Speaker 1: you go there, you can obviously choose how hot you
Speaker 1: want it. It's just kind of one of the things,
Speaker 1: and they're their hottest option. It's called howling, and you
Speaker 1: have to wear gloves. What I mean, let's listen. I
Speaker 1: just think like at that point it's crazy. I totally agree,
Speaker 1: but that's kind of I mean, you and I have
Speaker 1: this conversation pretty often about you know, like these ghost peppers,
Speaker 1: like we're not really we like spice, but we're not
Speaker 1: really interested in like burning our taste. But I mean
Speaker 1: you could literally use ghost peppers as a weapon. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not into that that part of it. You don't
Speaker 1: need it, no, I mean if you don't, if it
Speaker 1: gets so hot that you can't taste the actual food,
Speaker 1: what's the purpose do you watch the show Hot Ones.
Speaker 1: I love that show. Yeah, I think it's really cool.
Speaker 1: You should go on that show. They haven't asked me.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, please make my dad cool and I'm
Speaker 1: going Hot Ones? Please? Does that make me cool? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Clearly I'm not cool. Let's see some fried chicken sandwiches.
Speaker 1: Always Hungry is created by Bobby Flay and Sophie Flay.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotis. Always Hungary is produced, edited,
Speaker 1: and mixed by Jonathan Hoss Tressler. Always Hungry is engineered
Speaker 1: by Sophie Flay. For more podcasts on my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.