"Rick, you're doing this bit while your brain is melting." "Okay, alright, alright." Hey what's up guys and welcome back to Binging with Babish, where this week we have an internet emergency. Whoa, that was...kinda weird. Hey what's up guys, welcome back to Binging with Babish, where this week, I've been lucky enough to recieve a sample of real live Szechuan sauce courtesy of McDonald's Szechuan sauce giveaway contest winner, David Wasman. This, along with a spy photo of the actual ingredients list, presents a rare opportunity to try and recreate real live Szechuan sauce, not my interpretation of it, but the actual, genuine article- that is, until McDonald's inevitably brings it back by popular demand. So here it is, the holy grail, two or three of the one-hundred ninety-two available ounces in the known world. And to be honest it tastes... just okay. You know, it's probably one of those things that tastes better once it's on an actual nugget. another food item that, for some reason, I'll be attempting to recreate today. So like I said, here's my spy photo of the actual ingredients list. Now, while this is very helpful, it is just a list of ingredients in order of their prevalence in the recipe, so it led to a whole lot of trial and error. But at long last I can say with some confidence that I have stumbled across an almost indistinguishable at-home recipe that starts with half a cup each of water, white vinegar, white sugar, and soy sauce. Now, the recipe just lists soy beans, but I think this is what they were referring to. Next up, one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, maybe half a teaspoon of sesame seed oil, and a quarter teaspoon each of garlic powder, onion powder, and ground ginger. Again, this was listed as "spices" on the ingredients list, but, I can taste 'em in there. The list also called for yeast extract, which is marmite. And last but not least, dextrose- I'm using corn syrup, and a bit of ground black pepper. There were also a bunch of preservatives and stabilizers, but we're not gonna worry about those. The next thing we have to worry about is thickeners. After removing a quarter cup of sauce, we're going to add to it two tablespoons of cornstarch, and then add it back to the main sauce. We're gonna do the same thing with a teaspoon of xantham gum, and pour it back in through a strainer- it's almost impossible to get all the lumps out of this stuff. Whisk briskly over medium heat until it forms a sauce-like goo. Strain, cover, and cool so we can try making Chicken McNuggets for some reason. Chicken McNuggets used to contain chicken skin, so we're going to throw a little bit of chicken skin into the freezer to firm up for thirty minutes, just enough time to do a little bit of arts and crafts. Being sure to wear protective gloves, we're going to cut up an aluminum baking sheet into three-inch wide by twelve-inch long segments that we're going to fold in half leaving a little lip on one end that we can then fold over to leave no razor-sharp edges exposed. Why the hell are we doing this you might be asking? Well, because we need to make our chicken into these shapes: the bell, the ball, the bone and the boot. So just carefully shape these into the appropriate...shapes and if you want some more instructions on how to do this, check out some crafts website on how to make your own cookie cutters. And once they're all shaped properly it's time to glue them together. I'm going to use epoxy- probably not the most food-safe stuff in the world, so do this at your own risk- or just don't do this at all- just go out and buy some Chicken McNuggets, they're like ten for...five cents. Anyway, too late to back out now, so I'm going to secure these shut using paperclips and let them set for fifteen minutes. In the meantime, it's time to liquefy our chicken skins. Cut them up quickly while they're still cold so they don't smear on your food processor blade, and process to a fine paste. Then we're going to add to a pound of ground chicken. Make sure you're not just getting breast meat, because Mulan came out in 1998, well before the white meat uprising of 2003. To that, we're adding a hint of white pepper, a hint of garlic powder, a hint of onion powder, and much less subtle hints of kosher salt and white sugar. Beat together well to combine; you want a nice, smooth paste that we can then pour onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and then try to smooth the whole thing out to about a quarter-inch thick. To make sure that it's nice and uniform, we're going to spray a parchment-lined cutting board with nonstick spray and use it to press our chicken into a nice chicken-patty patty cake. Then we're going to put it in the freezer for fifteen minutes to firm up before using our homemade cookie cutters to cut the various chicken nugget shapes. Then we're going to place it on an oiled sheet of parchment paper and likewise, put in the freezer to firm up until we're ready to fry. Now, McDonald's uses a mixture of vegetable oil, canola oil, and they used to fry in beef fat tallow, which is where you get that signature McDonald's flavor. For the tempura batter I'm going with a combination of one cup white flour, a half cup of cornstarch, and a half cup of corn flour, to which we're going to add one egg and a cup each of water and vodka. The vodka is gonna keep gluten from forming, which is gonna keep the breading a little bit lighter. I'm also going to add a little bit of black pepper, because you can kind of see it in the McNugget breading there. Whisk gently to combine; it's okay if there's some lumps. And heat your oil to three-hundred forty right, three-hundred forty nine, three fif--wait, what the hell is going on here? Three forty-seven, three forty-eight, three forty-nine... there we go, three-fifty. Heat your oil mixture to three-hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit, and my first attempt I tried dredging the chicken pieces in flour, followed by batter, but this created a really, really sticky exterior that cooked a lot less evenly for some reason. The next time I just threw them straight in the batter and they cooked a lot more evenly and browned up more quickly. Fry for five to seven minutes, or until golden-brown and crisp, and hit 'em with a little bit of salt as soon as they're out of the fryer. Now as you can see, these aren't perfect recreations, but I mean, come on, they're pretty close. But that truly doesn't matter, because we are here for sauce. Which I'm very proud to say not only looks but tastes virtually identical. The nuggets are another story; mine taste a little more homemade. And that's not necessarily a good thing, because McDonald's nuggets are kind of the apex of the art form. They're not paying me to say that, by the way, it's just...the truth. But for the sauce I need an independent adjudicator. That's right, my roommate is back and he is tasting. By the way, I ended up having the exact same tupperware on hand as the guy who sent me the sauce- how handy is that for a blind taste test? And the results of this taste test were, drumroll please- (drumroll noises) Almost completely indistinguishable. He said one was slightly more vinegary than the other, but I'm calling this case closed. This is how you make Szechuan sauce at home, goodnight folks.
