- [Narrator] What does family taste like? In your heart, you know,
it's the best ingredients. The spiciest spices, all
prepared with love and care and always delivered
with a friendly smile. That's the Los Pollos Hermanos promise. - Come in and try our new curly fries. We are so sure you'll like them. And if you don't, they're on me. - [Babish] Hey, what's up guys. Welcome back to Binging with Babish where this week we're taking a look at Los Pollos Hermanos from Breaking Bad. Now you might be wondering what's in this little cup in front of me, and the answer to that question is French. The enticing swirl of
French and ranch dressing seen in the magical
electromotive test kitchens. I figured this would make
for a good curly fried dip, so we'll set that aside because for now, we have to make everything. First into a small mixing bowl, we are combining 15 grams Cayenne pepper, 10 grams each Aleppo pepper
and ground coriander, and 15 grams of red pepper flakes, which I'm going to powderize
by virtue of a spice grinder. Red pepper smoke, don't breathe this, seriously don't breathe
it, it hurts your lungs. Add that to the other spices
and tiny whisk to combine. Then we're gonna set aside
about three tablespoons of this spice mixture for our curly fries and the rest we're gonna
turn into a dry brine for our chickens. So we're gonna add about
15 grams of kosher salt, tiny whisk once again to combine and then it's time to
negotiate our chicken. Now you can fry up whatever pieces of chicken soup your fancy,
but I've got a whole one here. So I'm gonna follow the 10 piece
fried chicken architecture. If you want to see how to
break down a chicken like this, click the link in the upper
right-hand corner right now. Otherwise we're loading
these up onto a wire rack set in a rim baking sheet
and generously sprinkling on all sides with our dry brine mixture. The spices here are very
commonly used in Chilean cuisine, the country from which
Gustavo Fring is from. What? Anyway those are getting parked in the fridge uncovered
for four to 24 hours, during which time we're
gonna make our batter. Usually chicken is not batter fried, so this took a few tries. The best formulation we ended up with was 100 grams each all-purpose
flour and corn starch, a little optional sprinkle
of our spice mixture, 250 grams of water, 30 grams
of vodka, and two large eggs. The resultant batter should be pretty thin like a thin pancake batter because we don't want anything too thick like a tempura. We also didn't want the
batter to be so thick that we can't retrieve our bags
of meth, both valid reasons. This stuff can be covered and
fridged for a couple hours before use giving us time
to make that most elusive of side dishes, curly fries, for which we're gonna need this
torturous looking instrument otherwise known as a spiralizer. Once we've locked our skin
on russet into position, we're gonna place it over
a bowl of boiling water. Make sure that your potato
is thoroughly locked into the spiralizer, otherwise
you may be subject to antics. Once you get those out of your system and you've got enough boiling water and the bowl's completely
submerged the spiralized potatoes, lock it down, spin it up and let the machine live up to its name as it spiralizes your tater, a process that is as much
fun to watch as it is to say. Once complete you'll
be left with some long and curly potatoes and this
sort of potato mushroom thing, which is probably perfect for some kind of
potato-mushroom based prank. I'm gonna make one more potato subject to spiralization and
then press everybody down into the boiling water, making sure that everyone is submerged. Then I'm gonna let these
guys sit for 15 minutes. This is both going to
pack cook the potatoes and rinse off a lot of the excess starch so they do not discolor. Once drained, we're gonna
sandwich them betwixt paper towels and pat them as dry as possible. Once everybody's nice and dry, it's time to grab some scissors
and do a little manscaping. We need to reduce these
down to short and curlies. You don't want them too long but you don't want them too short either. Even these really straight
ones are gonna curl up in the frying oil. Once our shoe string
squiggles are snipped, go ahead and place them
back on the baking sheet, cover them with paper towel and then we need to make
a batter for our fries. This is a batter-fried meal. Into a large bowl, goes
15 grams of paprika, 60 grams of all purpose flour, 15 grams of cayenne pepper
and six grams of onion powder. I'm also gonna add a little bit of salt, not too much because we're
gonna salt these fries once they're done cooking,
and our reserved spice blend from the chicken. Tiny whisk until thoroughly combined, and then it's time to
add just enough water to make a very thin batter. For me, that was about 150
grams, but your mileage may vary. You want it to be just a
little thinner than like paint. We just want this to form a
light, ethereal crispy layer on the outside of our fries. Once you've got the right consistency, it's time to add the potatoes
and give them a toss. Then once thoroughly and
evenly coated in the batter, it's time only to head
over to the stove top, where in a cast iron
skillet I've got a quarter of peanut oil that I'm gonna heat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Now just like any other
right-minded human being, deep frying at home scares
the (bleep) out of me, as it should. Hot frying oil is very, very dangerous. So gently and slowly lower
your fries into the oil, trying to spread them
out into an even layer. Fry for about two to five minutes until they're a deep reddish
brown and beautifully crisp. Then we're taking them out and draining them on a paper
towel lined baking sheet, it should help keep them crisp, and just like virtually any fried food, generously seasoning with
kosher salt while still warm. Now my spiralizer cut these a little thin so they didn't have the same body and robustness as your
typical fast food curly fry, but they were still really, really good. Thin and crisp and spicy and salty, a better curly fry than I ever thought could be available
outside of mother Arby's. Now that we've got our fries all fried up, it's time to do the same to our chicken which we're gonna reinforce
with a little bit of flour. I'm gonna dump the chicken in first before giving it its bath in the batter. This is both gonna help the
batter adhere to the chicken and prevent it from splitting
in the ripping hot fry oil. Because as soon as it's coated in batter, it's headed over to a 375
degree Fahrenheit vat of death. You need to fry this
chicken in a lot of oil, otherwise the batter's gonna scorch if spends too long on
the bottom of the pan. So gently lower the pieces
into your hot tub of doom and then let them fry for
anywhere from seven to 10 minutes, depending on the size of the piece. You'll know it's done when
it's a beautiful golden brown and your dark meat registers
175 to 185 degrees Fahrenheit and your white meat registers 165. Try to give them a turn every minute or so to make sure that nobody's scorching on the bottom of the pot, drain on paper towels,
and we're finally ready to serve our batter
dunked deep fried dinner. I'm just gonna plate myself
up a generous curly fry and three piece combo. And there you have it, Pollos Hermanos, chicken marinated in Chilean
spices, and then batter fried, a most unusual method for
preparing fried chicken. And while the fries are great, the chicken has its pros and cons. Pros are thanks to the
cornstarch and the vodka, it is shatteringly crisp. And as you're about to see in
my embarrassing first bite, it is extraordinarily juicy. The batter forms almost a watertight seal around the chicken so that
no moisture can escape. But on the con side of things, it is extremely finicky
and fragile when frying. And if you crack the shell in
the early stages of cooking, you're in for a big
sputtering, scary mess. So I reluctantly have to
recommend the old fashioned flour and egg dance. But something I can wholeheartedly
recommend are these fries and the French was good, but I really wanted to try that
green Cajun kick-ass stuff. Guess we'll save that for
the tater tots episode. (bright music)
I know he says not to bother with the batter fried chicken... But it looks so good. I really want to make it.
Do I have to make my own meth or is store bought fine?
Potato mushroom thing.
Nice Blendtec reference hahaha!!
It's 10 AM and I'm trying to be a little healthy but now all I want is some seasoned curly fries. Hot damn.
A month in and him using Babish-branded cookware is still an absolute flex
His “shortened curlies” line got a genuine guffaw out of me. Was not expecting a pube joke.
The thing that gets me about all these food Youtubers when it comes to being scared about deep frying is that home use deep frying machines exist...for like $50-100. Do you need one to deep fry food? Absolutely not. Does it sit safely on your countertop and have a frying basket? Yes.
Like, I get that you shouldn't assume people have one and that truly you can just make fried foods on your stove with no special equipment, but so many, Babish here included, treat deep frying like this herculean task when there is a tool you can buy that puts the oil in a safer place and gives you an optional basket to use.
Food looks amazing here though, love Babby's work. Just kinda silly to me.
At the end, is that what professional movie directors called “cum shot”?