Pro Chef Tries To Make Chicken Wings Faster Than Delivery

Everyone's going swimming. Okay.

Feels daunting in some ways

to deep fry chicken wings at home.

It's a lot of oil.

It's definitely a labor of love

that I think is really well worth it.

Also, your board should never look like this.

Don't do what I'm doing. Okay.

Hi, I'm Susan, and today, I'm taking on takeout.

[upbeat percussion music]

What's my relationship with the wings?

I mean, I guess it's like torrid love affair. [laughs]

I can fry wings at home,

but can I do it as fast as a restaurant?

I'm ordering Buffalo wings,

and I'm ordering some Korean chicken wings.

Oh [beep], it's coming to my apartment.

Okay.

I wasn't doing that on purpose. [laughs]

Okay. Submitting order.

Starting the delivery. Great.

Pink timer's mine. I'm going to start the timer now.

Here we go.

The first thing I'm going to do is get the oil going.

When you're ordering wings,

you're looking for these five things.

You're the first and foremost, the crispiness, the interior,

or the meat to be juicy.

In case of the Buffalo wings

and the Korean fried chicken wings,

the sauce is very important as well.

It's going to be a mix of flats and drums.

It is also going to come with some refreshing sides.

We're looking for around 300, so until it gets there,

I'm going to show you how to make daikon pickles.

Okay, here we go.

So what we need for this is just three ingredients.

About a third cup of sugar.

The same amount for the vinegar and some water.

And we're going to kind of just bring

that up to a quick boil.

Oh, wait, and salt. We always need salt.

Chicken mu. Mu is radish.

Bright sort of briny pickle

that you eat along the sides of the chicken

to cut down the richness so that you can continue to

eat more chicken.

Cut this much off. This is about a pound.

You're going to go ahead and peel this baby really fast.

[fan turns on]

The fan just turned on because safety first,

and we got hot things going on.

So my voice carries, but it's going to carry more.

Pickles, like it's something that maybe

we don't think about doing at home,

but it's so easy.

You wanted to have like a nice chicken wing night

on a Saturday night, maybe you do this on Friday,

and just give it a day over.

The pickle liquid is also up to boil.

So we're going to go ahead and turn that off

and pour the hot liquid over the pickles.

That's helping to bring all the components of the vinegar,

sugar and things, into the daikon.

It's not necessarily cooking it.

It's just going to expedite that process.

We're going to let this chill,

and let's move on to the chicken.

The batter for these wings.

We're going to do a half a cup of all purpose,

quarter cup of corn starch, quarter cup of potato starch.

I'm carrying a lot of things that maybe I don't need. Okay.

The potato starch; it definitely adds a crispy chewiness.

Something that like Korean pancakes

are often made with as well.

I'm going to mix it and then add some cold water.

Whole purpose of any of this is

to make a really crispy chicken wing.

So what we're looking for is kind of a loose batter.

Okay. That feels loose.

The drums and flats are what you get from a whole wing.

People are really into the flats. I like drums. I know.

For me, they're like baby drumsticks.

You don't really have to force anything.

Your knife will go right through it.

You'll feel that joint.

It'll show you where to cut, like,

and same thing with the wing tip right here.

And so there we have it.

We have a flat and we have a drum.

This, I would say save it for stock, sauces.

I feel like the flats, people are really passionate

about wings being about flats.

How some people like put this in their mouth

and suck it dry.

And all you get are the bones.

That's a skill set.

And I don't know if I have that.

So we got drums and flats. We got 20 of them.

Season this with salt and pepper

and a little bit of that baking powder I mentioned.

Baking powder also is kind of what we've been talking about.

Everything is to help crisp up the skin.

Also at the same time, produce something juicy inside.

What's the time and a vibe check?

Oh, we got 17 minutes.

The vibes? Wonderful.

This particular chicken wing, we're going to double fry.

Double frying means that we're going to fry

at a lower temperature.

This is to cook the meat slower

and to ensure that the meat is going to be juicy inside.

Then we're going to do a second fry at a higher temperature

to really crisp those babies up.

So let's like throw everyone in the pool.

Everyone's going swimming. Okay.

And then we're just kind of coating it.

One by one, we're going to drag it through the mix

and then drop it.

What this first fry does, is going to cook it gently.

We're not looking for color

or we're not really looking for crispiness,

because that's going to be the second fry

when it's the higher temperature.

We want it to consistently stay around 300.

So it's kind of at around 260.

Crank that up just a little bit.

While we're waiting for this,

we're going to build our sauces.

All right. So Buffalo.

Very, the purist, is Frank's Hot

and good, old-fashion unsalted butter.

I'm adding a little bit of vinegar

because I really like sourness

and the brightness that extra vinegar brings.

Like three tablespoons of butter.

We're going to get them melted.

[Man] Time check is 25 minutes.

Oh really?

[beep] Okay.

Okay.

All right. It's fine.

Everything's fine.

While we're waiting for the butter to melt,

we can go ahead and do our other sauce.

Okay, the Korean stuff has a few more ingredients.

It is a chili sauce.

That's kind of what the base of Gochujang

and it's all kind of to taste.

But I would say, a quarter cup of Gochujang.

I'm so pumped on this product, which is the plum syrup.

Some sweetness.

And that's going to add a little bit of tartness as well.

This is like soy sauce I use for broth.

So it's not going to impart a lot of flavor.

I like fish sauce.

Sometimes when you're like, it needs something.

It's usually like a whisper of fish sauce

that like make everything sing.

Oh yeah. Let's add a little garlic powder.

We're going to garnish Korean chicken wings

with sesame seeds,

but we're going to also mount some in here.

There's definitely a distinct sweetness to it too.

So I'm adding more sweetness with maple syrup.

A little bit of sesame oil.

Okay. I also see the bubbles of the chicken wings.

It's getting louder. It's getting bigger.

Yeah, I say let's take it out.

Okay. So here we go.

We're going to take it out of the first fry.

So they're a bit blonde.

Okay. Butter is melted too. So let's cut that.

Yeah. I'll just tell you when things are done.

What I'm going to do is cool this down in the fridge.

It's very minimal cooling. So butter is melted.

Just adding some Frank's Hot Sauce.

This was the hot sauce that was used

when they first came out with the Buffalo wing recipes.

In Buffalo, New York.

A splash of this.

So boom, that's done.

Let's go back to this Korean stuff.

Probably needs vinegar.

Okay, it's really good, but I'm going to cut it.

Yeah. I'm just adding a little bit of this.

A little bit of that.

I'm gonna add a tiny bit of water.

Something I wasn't planning.

Oh, we got a text.

Is it the wing people? It is.

Says it's been picked up and now is en route.

Oh, good God.

Okay. What is it?

Oh, it's 32 minutes.

I mean, I honestly thought this would be all done within

half an hour,

but time flies when you're having fun.

Okay. So, all right.

Yeah, let's go.

It's like 350-ish.

Let's go second fry.

While we do the second part,

we're going to go in and make the blue cheese dressing too.

But all right, so let's get the wings.

Oh, let's get the celery.

All about the economy of the body.

What are you carrying in? What are you bringing out?

So this time, we're looking to really seal it in.

We're looking for color, for that extra crunch.

The bubbles are going.

The second fry is literally the golden color.

'Cause the first fry, again, is more like a cold feet,

slow, going slow, 300, even lower if you have the time,

and you're not like on a game show or whatever, like.

What we need after a Frank's Hot Sauce butter mix

is some blue cheese dressing to go along with it.

A shout out to another great American product,

Hellman's Mayo.

Probably doesn't get better than this.

So we're going to put some of this in.

I'm going to put in some sour cream.

Put in what the dressing is named after,

some crumbled blue cheese.

I would say like equal parts.

Oh, I'm adding a little bit of celery salt.

That's fun.

I'm going to cut some of this richness

with some lemon juice.

And also, I can tell right now, I can hear the chicken.

Look at this.

We got some nice color. I think I can go a little bit more.

Your vegetable intake for this meal: celery sticks.

Also your board should never look like this.

Don't do what I'm doing. Okay.

Oh yeah. That's for the pickles too.

Okay. Let's go ahead and put the dressing in here.

Get it all ready, right?

How about some of this? Just like in here, waiting.

Just waiting. This is now crudite as well.

Okay. Guess what?

Chicken's ready.

So here we go. We're taking it out.

This is what we think about

when we think about fried chicken wings.

Oh, yeah, time check. 39 minutes.

Okay.

We're going to do 10 Buffalo wings,

10 Korean style fried chicken wings.

So I'm going to keep it diplomatic.

Everyone's going to get equal amount of drums and flats.

Here we go. This.

We're coating. We're glazing.

Let's now do Korean stuff.

Can we hear this? Can we do...

Yeah. Yeah.

Yup.

Okay.

I think there's nothing to do but plate them, right?

Are we there?

We're going to plate these pickles,

because we eat with our eyes,

even if they're not quite ready.

Maybe hit it with a little bit more of the sesame.

Okay, so we've got this.

Two cultures coming together.

We really need this right now, okay?

And then...

I can check my time.

43 minutes.

I beat the delivery!

[rap horns]

What happened right now? [laughs] Wait, right?

[Man] Just make sure they didn't call.

Oh yeah, he's been here. No, I'm just kidding.

He hasn't been.

Okay, Esther is approaching.

Hi, I'm sorry. Is this the delivery?

[Esther] Yes.

I'm coming down.

47 minutes and 20 seconds.

I beat it by four minutes.

[kissing noise]

But they're friends.

Okay. Yes.

[laughs] Right.

Thank you so much. Okay.

We got our delivery. Here we go.

We've got some wings.

Okay. Let's see what we got here.

All right. I'm going to plate these up.

And we're going to taste them side by side.

Or are we doing side by side?

Yeah, sure.

We're going to taste them side by side.

I'm going to taste the Korean fried wings

from the takeout place.

It's crispy.

The sauce has definitely sunk in,

but it's not completely

soft yet.

There's a lot that happens from the moment that these

chicken wings get prepped, to fried, packaged,

and then delivered, so it's totally understandable

for me that it's not as crispy.

So let's go, let's go in that order.

All right. All right.

We're getting a good sound.

Mhm.

It tastes great. [laughs]

It's guaranteed if we do a double frying method,

which we did the first fry,

which was like the cold feet,

that is to ensure that the meat is going to be juicy inside.

I mean, it's kind of comparable, right?

We want to be able to taste the sauces.

The sauciness, how well coated things are.

When it's so crispy, it can get saturated,

but that integrity is still going to be there.

They're definitely spicier,

which I don't really mind, because I can handle the spice.

And so this one, you just really taste like the tanginess,

the spiciness on the Gochujang

and all the other things that I put in there.

This was totally delicious as well.

It's just, I'm not really getting that much chili from this.

Then I want a good mix of flats and drums.

So I'm going to go with flat Buffalo.

Here we go.

Mhm.

Mhm.

They're definitely using Frank's Hot as well.

Mhm.

They didn't do any sort of batter.

And I think some Buffalo wing purists really believe

that it should be without any sort of

batter, breading, coating.

We decided to go with a double fry method

for both types of wings.

Mhm.

It's crispy. You taste the sauce, a little bit more nuance.

And again, I don't know if it's I'm partial to it,

but you actually taste the butter too, in a nice way.

Maybe not for the purists, but I don't really,

I don't mind the double fry method for this.

I think it's ensuring a crispy wing.

We want refreshing sides it's served with.

So I like chunks of blue cheese

and that's what we got in our sauce.

This is a little bit more of a puree thing.

Again, when you make your own stuff,

you can do it however you want.

And I'm actually surprised, cause I had a pickle earlier,

and I don't know.

I don't know if it's because we diced them smaller,

but these taste pickle-y.

These are sweeter. The restaurant pickles are sweeter,

but in terms of like the vinegary-ness

and the crispness,

it's there.

I absolutely think it's worth it to do it at home.

You're not going to do it every weekend.

This is a food that evokes for me

gatherings of people, eating with our hands,

and also a celebration.

This could be a really fun project that you do.

And then this could fill other emotional eating needs.

So it's a wonderful world, because we have options.

And again, there's room for both.

Fried chicken wings. Totally worth it.

[rap horns]

[rap horns]

We did it!