4 Levels of Fried Chicken: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

hi I'm Emily and I am a level one chef hi I'm Beth and I'm a level two chef hey my name is Chris Scott and I've been a chef for thirty years these are my panko crusted chicken tenders I make them every couple months it's a variation on my mom's fried chickens there were very few things that she made really really well but fried chicken was one of them this recipe here is the twist on that old southern sweet tea kind of bride I'm gonna do a lemonade version of that I like making chicken tenders because they're fast they're pretty easy and it's not intimidating I chose the drumstick when I make them for my grandbabies they can walk around the house because it has its own handle you're gonna have a juicier product if you have the bones inside so I'm going to butcher this into 8 pieces very simple I'm gonna cut off the thigh and the leg when you take the wing off boom breast you don't really have to get real fancy with your cuts you just want to break it down into eight pieces okay so now let's get that flavor into the bird first thing I want to do is salt a hair on my finger the salt is gonna help the water come out of the cells and the chicken and flavor is gonna go in it was nice you guys to give me a pepper grinder today because I have one at home but I haven't actually practice really simple spice rub garlic powder paprika pepper and cayenne a little kick is good here you have all the ingredients I have garlic I have onion powder cumin salt sugar lemon juice and hot sauce cold water and then I'm gonna blend that up like so I really don't dig brining so much water so much waste of buttermilk I'm going to take half of it to season the chicken and I'm gonna use this to flavor my flour sometimes I put the salt and pepper in the flour but you know this way yeah I guess you'd make sure you get seasoning on all of them what I'm gonna do is take my chicken parts and I'm going to put them - this vacuum-seal bag I'm going to take that brine I'm going to pour it over top getting all that good flavor inside and then I'm gonna seal it up what it's doing here is taking out all the air to really compress the flavors of the brine into the meat so now that everything is marinating in the bag the flavor is really working its way inside I'm going to put this in the fridge for about four hours next is dredging ultimately I'm gonna put flour egg and panko on but first I need to make my egg wash which just means I'm gonna crack some eggs and put them on the chicken egg mixture first some people put other stuff in their egg wash but understanding two eggs some buttermilk I like the tang of the buttermilk better than regular milk get that all mixed in nothing I think so this bird is just coming out of its for our bath and that tasty lemonade brine we're gonna take this out of here and we're gonna put it in the buttermilk bath what this part of it is doing is tenderizing the bird and massaging all those that juicy buttermilk goodness into it so now it's time to dredge these birds I'm gonna season the flour mixture that I'm gonna dredge the chicken in just regular flour all-purpose flour the rest of our seasoning mix some cornstarch some cornmeal what cornmeal does is gives it an extra crunch to make it even more crunch here I have some cornstarch and some baking product you might also be asking no salt no pepper do you remember that brine right bang right here to get the excess off and then I'm gonna go into the egg and then I'm moving it into my panko crumbs and just trying to get it coated with mica Edward panko hands if you don't kind of keep your hands separate you're gonna get a really gloppy flour hand so I really try to use one wet hand and one dry hand we're actually gonna let the chicken that's already been dredged sit for about 10 minutes so we let these chill for 15 minutes and now we're gonna fry them I'm just gonna put a couple tablespoons of oil just kind of cover the bottom and I'm just gonna wait for that to heat up a little when you're working with a whole bird you have different sizes all of those pieces are going to cook at different times so because the breast takes the longest I'm going to put this one in first and you want to get the internal temperature to about 165 degrees so I'm gonna break this up into three batches we're put in four pieces of chicken right now I like to just slide it gently into the pot my oil is at 360 it'll take about 15 minutes for the drumstick to come up to temperature to find out if the oil is hot usually I would drop something in and then just see if it sizzling so I'm gonna do that right now know what kind of oil is this this is peanut oil for me peanut oil is the best I've tried all the other oils and I like this one the best when it's bubbling away it smells great so I got my thigh my drumstick my wings getting dressed it's ready to go by and breast and in about eight minutes or so we'll throw in the leg and the wing yeah there we go all right and I'm gonna put a couple of these in at once don't want to crowd the pan to make sure that they're done I'm gonna cook them for about four to five minutes on each side and I'm just gonna try and leave them alone but I'm gonna move this guy a little bit more into oil cuz there's no one I where he's sitting I don't like to touch the chicken when it's in the oil just leave it alone you want to put the drumstick and I'm going to put the wing inside so that all four of my pieces come out at the same time I feel like they might be burning a little so I'm gonna just look on the other side actually you know what that could be worse but it's kind of an element of trial and error to cooking you know I think this chicken is good so I'm gonna cut this one open and just see if it's we're on the inside or not I feel like it's got to be cooked through so you want the internal cooking temperature of this chicken to be at 165 degrees oh yeah that's for sure cooked perfect so after the chicken comes out of the oil I really like to add one more layer of flavor so I have a little bit of sea salt right here a lemon and a microplane take the zest and get all of that flavor into my soul right out the oil while it's still hot is some of that lemon salt on there get some salt on your chicken as soon as it comes out of the fryer with my chicken tenders I like ketchup here's my fried chicken nice plate of fried chicken now I'm starting to get down good to see all that Florence look at that goodness nice and crunchy you can hear it and taste it and a nice kick from the Cayenne delicious eliminate that crunch aspect the flavor they're tasty they're crunchy they're chicken what's not to love you just saw three chefs make three very different fried chickens by understanding the different methods to prepare chicken in the chemistry of frying you could make crispy juicy and delicious fried chicken at home Emily use salt and pepper on the outside of her chicken for flavoring Beth used salt in a mixture of spices and Chris used spices salt lemon juice and hot sauce to flavor the outside of his chicken Beth and Chris both use a method called brining brining is the process of submerging lean meats like chicken into a salt mixture which can be wet or dry Chris used a wet brine and combined an acidic component lemon juice and hot sauce whereas Beth used a dry brine where she coated the outside of her meat with salt and spices what you want is to make flavorful chicken and this will do the trick applying heat to the muscles of meat will dry it out using salt with a wet brine or a dry brine can help to dissolve the muscle proteins or the myosin found in the muscle fiber oils which will then bind with water this dissolved protein and water matrix will help to keep the moisture in your cooked final product a few hours or overnight brining is the perfect amount of time to help to improve the juiciness of your final product you're good to go our muscle fibers are bound together with connective tissue connective tissue is collagen and elastin which when cooked in the meat can become really tough using a marinade that has something acidic like butter melts that we saw Chris use will help to denature the collagen and elastin or our connective tissue and create a more 10 a final product chicken can be coded in a bread crumb coating or a mixture of flour and starches Emily used bread crumbs on the outside of her chicken click a little panko blanket for it to go to sleep hush Beth and Chris both used a combination of flour and starches creating an outside layer on your chicken using starch helps to create an exterior coating that will become really crispy when we expose that starch to heat the combination of amylose and amylopectin two different kinds of starches found in the outside layer will help to bind together to create a porous and crunchy exterior Chris use baking powder in his dry mix but gives it that really fluffy crunchy kind of effect baking powder is activated at two points in this recipe first when the dry mix is coated onto the outside of the moist chicken and second when the chicken is fried in hot oil when the baking powder is activated in Chris's chicken recipe it helps to produce carbon dioxide gas which is going to leaven the coating on the chicken producing a fluffy and crispy crust crispy little shards of goodness when selecting an oil for frying we look for two attributes smoke point and flavor profile Emily and Chris both use canola oil and Beth used peanut oil for frying adds a nice flavor to the chicken and it makes the house smell wonderful both of these oils have a high smoke point which means that we can bring them up to a fairly high temperature when we fry before they start to smoke so this oil right here is rocking at about 325 canola oil and peanut oil are both considered neutral flavored oils selecting a neutral oil when frying will allow the flavors added to your chicken to shine without too much flavor from the oil after you've selected your oil it's time to choose your cooking method when frying chicken you can pan fry it or deep fat fry it Emily chose pan frying which employs conduction cooking conduction cooking is a heat transfer that comes from the bottom of our pan which doesn't allow you to regulate the temperature of the oil oh I see my pan was not quite on the burner Beth and Chris both employed convection cooking convection cooking uses gas like air or liquid like the liquid oil in our deep fryer to move the heat around our chicken creating a well cooked an even final product when using deep fat frying you can attach a thermometer onto the side of the pot to regulate the temperature of the oil and ensure even cooking when choosing your cut of chicken it can be helpful to select pieces that are the same size Emily used chicken tenders which are all about the same size and will cook at the same rate Beth employed batch cooking she cooked four pieces at a time instead of all of her pieces this helped to decrease overcrowding in the pot overcrowding the pot lowers the temperature of the oil low temperature oil can more easily be absorbed this will lead to a greasy air fried chicken Chris used the whole bird and leveraged batch cooking to cook the larger pieces first and the smaller pieces later to have them all finished at the same time so you know the best time to eat some fried chicken is basically any time the next time you're craving fried chicken skip the drive-through and use some of these tips to make great fried chicken at home

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Views: 8,638,381

Rating: 4.8783684 out of 5

Keywords: 4 levels, fried chicken, 4 levels of, amateur chef, food scientist, fried chicken 4 levels, 4 levels epicurious, professional chef, homemade fried chicken, fried chicken epicurious, how to make fried chicken, make fried chicken, making fried chicken, fried chicken recipe, how to fried chicken, 4 levels fried chicken, 4 levels of fried chicken, amateur fried chicken, pro fried chicken, professional fried chicken, making chicken, chicken, epicurious

Id: ey6drwA_xvE

Length: 13min 23sec (803 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 27 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Midnoodle]

I love these videos, but I think it's hilarious that they give the "expert" a stick to show that they're smart.

[u/quazamuhaha]

Why do they call it 4 levels of fried chicken though? It's 3 levels and a lady that explains the benefits of the methods they used.

[u/alkkine]

I just want to say when it comes to fried food especially you are never paying for the execution in the bill. Its usually not that hard to do. What you are paying for is prep, material, equipment and cleanup. Similar to most american chinese dishes which happen to contain fried chick ofc, fried food in general is a giant pain in the ass to do at home. You gotta prep and marinade usually, then store oil, heat a large batch of it, get your fingers messy with dredges and create several dirty dishes, splatter you entire stove with beads of oil, make your house smell like a mcdonalds, then you gotta wait an hour for the oil to cool and figure out what the fuck to do with a gallon of used cooking oil. Make sure you dont through it down the drain that will fuck shit up.

Of you could just pay 10$ once in a blue moon when you want some chicken. If you want it all the time you will likely pay it off faster working a part time job than trying to make it at home, fuck unless you make it a couple hundred time you will probably barely beat out the local chicken place on cost anyhow.

This isn't to say dont do it, i know all this because i do cook fried chicken and have for years. But i do it becuase i like cooking not because it is easy, convenient, healthy or cost effective.

[u/Cwmcwm]

How to read three recipes simultaneously 101

[u/SpaceCampDropOut]

You will listen to me, cause my pointer retracts smartly!

[u/Zwolfer]

Love this channel

[u/Hawny]

6 friggn adverts... 😐

[u/[deleted]]

Bought eggs, man this process takes a long time.

[u/AgentPayne]

I love this series ("4 Levels of...") but I almost always think the level 2 version looks the best. It seems like all the level 3 versions are pretentious, overly complicated takes on the dish. A way for the chef to show off, not a great way to cook the actual dish.