Pro Chef Tries To Make A Fried Chicken Sandwich Faster Than Delivery

Um,

oh my God

[beep]

Restaurants have like porters and like prep cooks.

There's just me.

Okay, this is like a mom and pop moment.

Ooh. It's just me doing it.

Ah!

Trying to like make a living

[laughs]

just selling things out the back of my Subaru or whatever.

[beep]

Hey I'm DeVonn.

and today I've been challenged to cook

a fried chicken sandwich faster than delivery.

[upbeat music]

Chrissy did it.

Harold did it.

Andy basically did it.

Oh my God.

I did not see Chris'.

[upbeat music]

I've got to follow in their footsteps.

I got to make everyone proud.

[phone ringing]

I would love to order a fried chicken sandwich.

Okay.

So apparently, allegedly, they're telling me

that it'll be 10, 15 minutes

and, uh, it takes 12 minutes for my oil to get hot.

So, with three minutes So, I'm going to set the timer

for 30 minutes and try to beat that time.

[timer beeping]

Oops, [beep].

[laughs] there we go.

Let me try it again.

[timer beeping]

Starting.

Ah!

Okay. So first and foremost, getting the oil to temp.

So the oil we're going to heat to 350 degrees.

It's just the right temperature to make sure

that you get that golden brown crust

that you're looking for.

Thermometer, light her up, say a prayer.

Okay. So there are four keys

to a good fried chicken sandwich.

So you have the crispy, craggy exterior.

We have a creamy and bright slaw.

Gives it a little bit more moisture.

You have the peppery and briny hot sauce,

and last but not least, you have a soft, squishy bun

that we toast to keep it all sturdy.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to set

up my dredge for the fried chicken

Let's see, buttermilk

and then all my spices.

Okay, oh chicken.

And so usually you'd want to brine chicken thigh

for running from between two and 12 hours.

But because we don't also have that luxury,

we're just going to give the chicken

a little seasoning, one egg.

I can just do it directly into the pan.

Ooh, just got a tail on her.

Where's the front of this?

Oh my God.

Buttermilk's important because essentially

what it does is it breaks down the proteins in the chicken.

Pickle brine really popular too,

but we are using a buttermilk because it's fat

and also acid at the same time.

Whisk.

We have buttermilk in one tray

then we have the flour, seasoning

and breadcrumbs going in another tray.

Flour helps to seal in and stick to the skin of the chicken.

But then what you get from Panko is

just a little level of texture just to make sure

that those pieces of crust are bigger

and you're maximizing flavor by also adding in

a robust blend of spices.

It's not just about salt and pepper.

It's about cayenne.

There's ground mace, paprika, onion powder.

I'm going to put a little bit more.

And I think just having like a really well-rounded mix

of spices can actually take your fried chicken game up

so many notches.

And then we add the chili to our bowl

which I need to add to the spice grinder.

[grinder whirling]

What does my timer say?

Ah!

Mix that in.

Perfect. [beep]

Oil is heating up.

It's not quite at 300 yet.

We're trying to get to that 350 mark.

So that's fine. What we're going to do is we're going

to transition to our slaw.

[upbeat music]

Cabbage is important to a slaw

because it's got a little bit more structure and integrity

than lettuce does.

And I like to mix the two because I think it's pretty.

[beep]

[dramatic music]

Hello?

Okay.

Do you want, like, uh, I'll be there in a second

[laughs]

This is the saddest day of my life.

[knocking]

That better not be our guy.

No

[dramatic music]

Well, I mean, I definitely did not see this coming.

I did not see Chris'

Wow, they really did that in 15 minutes.

[music]

Hi.

Ooh. They even gave me a little side salad.

Ooh, it's a big one, but is it

delicious?

[beep]

I'm just going to keep pushing on.

You want to add a really good Mayo to it.

I prefer using Kewpie because it's sweet

and it's also creamy.

You know if this was a Friday it would have been different.

Today is a really cool and easy breezy Monday.

Everyone just like had a good weekend.

They cleansed on Sunday.

So they're not really looking

for a chicken sandwich probably.

Vinegar, use champagne.

This is distilled

At temp, get these all dredged.

Really, the cool thing about breading is not only

does it provide texture, but it also absorbs flavor.

It'll pull in the flavor of the hot sauce

and it'll pull in the flavor of the slaw

Uh, six minutes.

All right. So we're just going to drop this in

Oil currently is at 375.

Temperature is crawling back down

and I'm just going to get the sauce going.

The hot sauce that I made is my version

of a pepper sauce.

It is a traditional Jamaican hot sauce condiment essentially

that adds a level of spice from the scotch bonnet

which is a super popular pepper in Jamaica.

I prefer to use things like allspice

or pimiento because it actually adds a layer of earthiness.

I'm just going to break down this guindilla pepper.

So we usually would ferment the hot sauce

but I'm just going to add some of the juice

so that we have a little bit of brininess

and brown sugar just to balance out some of the spiciness.

Oh [beep].

[blender whirling]

And then we're just going to cook it down a little bit

kind of rounds it out.

Oh my God.

The color is perfect.

[timer beeping]

We're going to just add another four minutes back

because I feel like I lost it.

I'm just going to toast our bun over dry heat.

Honestly, I have a sweet tooth and brioche is just

a little bit sweeter than what you might find

from a classic potato roll

Our hot sauce Ooh, it smells so good.

It smells like my grandma's house and I'm not mad.

Ooh.

One minute.

Chicken, down.

I like to have my slaw on the side

Pepper sauce.

I would clean it up,

but I just wanted to prove to everyone that,

[timer beeping]

exactly, that I'm finished well before time

We're going to just add another four minutes back

because I feel like I lost it.

So for the restaurant version

we have a similar cabbage slaw, but this one I can tell

because of the translucency, maybe this wasn't made today.

And then the bun

you can tell that they did actually toast it.

They used a bit more oil.

You can tell because of the way it's saturated

in the center of the, of the bread here.

And then there's some sort

of like remoulade, orange creamy moment.

I mean, it's kinda like an orange ranch.

Honestly, it might be ranch and French dressing together.

It's really good though. I'm actually into it.

This piece of meat is like giving me Incredible Hulk vibe.

It's like really big.

So when I bite this, even

though it does have a bit of texture to it

it's still a little bit softer and a little oily.

It leaves my mouth kind of coded oil, but delicious.

Okay. Let's talk about my fried chicken sandwich.

Perfect brioche. The slaw is on point.

I can even smell the heat.

It's like got that floralness to it, which I really like.

It's going to be very spicy.

Oh yeah. I don't know if you've ever been

to like a Southern church before

but you have people who like passed out on the floor

and they like, they caught the Spirit.

Basically the sandwich is doing that to me right now.

Ooh. Except I'm not going to pass out

for the sake of this video.

I think, I think I

not that it was a competition, but I killed it.

I smashed it.

It's got such a good balance of heat.

Not only from the condiment on top

but also from the texture of the chicken sandwich itself

it's still got its crunch and integrity.

And then the bun hasn't absorbed all of the sauce yet

but it still kind of holds that flavor in place.

And it's squishy.

It's like a little stress ball, essentially.

You just like squeeze buns all day.

[smooth music]

So, in conclusion to have the perfect fried chicken sandwich

there's four key things you have to be mindful of.

The first one is going to be the crispy craggy texture,

controlling your temperature.

It's a little detail, but it's the difference

between something that's soggy and something that's not.

So I can kind of tell that they were maybe

frying something else and the temperature dropped

and they had this in

and they didn't get it back up to temperature.

All fine, it's still delicious.

This sandwich, the texture of the breading is fire.

It's not getting softy or soggy in a box.

It's not pre-dressed for you.

When we look at something like a slaw, it's creamy,

but it's also bright as well.

So the slaw is on point, it's cooling, it's refreshing.

It's also acidic.

So it's actually good

that you break your cabbage down a little bit.

You maybe don't want it to go this far

because then you kind of lose the integrity

and that crunchiness.

Condiments are everything right.

So hot sauce that I made is my version of a pepper sauce.

It is peppery and briny

Over time it develops more and more flavor.

But if you want to get around that, you can always throw

in a pickled pepper just to kind of get those flavors

and that kind of like, funky moment going.

And then I probably want like a creamy

I want like a creamy sauce.

I think, I think I'm actually inspired

by the restaurant version to actually also have

like a creamy sauce in addition to the pepper sauce as well.

And then the bun is, you know, got that sturdiness.

It's a great bun choice.

When it comes to toasting.

I like to do no fat because there's already so much fat

that's been in contact with the sandwich.

This is a little deflated.

And then the bun is a little too oily.

And so the takeaway I think is

you can do this yourself at home.

It allows you to appreciate how good

a chicken sandwich should be and can be.

The first time I made my first fried chicken sandwich

and people were around to eat it,

I was like, first of all, the talk of the town.

Everyone loved me and wanted to hang out with me even more.

And then if you feel

like you're down on your serotonin levels,

just pick up the phone.

Fried chicken sandwich will be there in 12 minutes.

[upbeat music]

What's up, you need some help?

No I don't need to help Andy.

[laughs]

So which one looks better?

Yeah I'm not gonna tell you which one is mine.

That's fine. I'll tell you honestly.

Okay, this one?

No.

Yes.

[laughs]

And which one is yours?

Obviously the one on the left.

[laughs]