Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich

after so many requests we're finally doing it let's go to chick-fil-a [Music] please drive safely chick-fil-a chick-fil-a chick-fil-a we keep keep getting these people asking for chick-fil-a and honestly i don't really know what it is is the sandwich is it that sauce which is quite good i feel like we have to make all of it so today we're switching it up a little bit we got a little bit tired of just being stuck in the kitchen so we are right now on the way to a chick-fil-a it was 6.9 miles away very nice but somehow like 35 or 40 minutes of a drive so i don't even know how we're gonna get back in time and finish the video before it gets dark out but i'm really excited because we were getting a little bit tired of being stuck in that kitchen all the time so i think this is gonna be nice to be able to really go out there get some of that fresh fast food and then go back and kick the crap out of it with a better version chick-fil-a is great i think the thing about chick-fil-a is that their sandwiches are top-notch right no one can really deny that and chick-fil-a and popeyes are up on the top for a reason i am a popeyes guy through and through i just think popeye's chicken is crispier than anything in the world it is a perfect perfect crisp every time chick-fil-a's a bit more simple but their sandwiches are so so good but something about popeyes takes the seasoning to the next level for me with that said though where i think chick-fil-a does have an edge is all their sauces which are fire so in addition to making the sandwich today we're gonna make some of those sauces because i feel like we do have to do that everybody loves chick-fil-a sauce it's got a little bit of that dijon mustard in there it's got a little bit of everything which i think is key okay you can go you can go all right all right all right sheila she just cut me off you cut me off this is so freaking far away so we've officially made it here we are at chick-fil-a this is huge how are you yes nick nick yeah um can we just do three of the crispy chicken sandwiches please just regular yeah maybe some fries too actually just two orders of fries and then a bunch of chicken salad sauce too please thank you so much have a good one oh they have milkshakes this guy looks like a bouncer dude you might want to get the temperature of the car it's pretty good this is the perfect temperature in my opinion for the human body hello thank you so much have a great day thank you hell yeah let's go these fries are undercooked they are good for now we scared the bag i'm gonna close this up we're gonna get back home we are going to beat the heck out of chick-fil-a and voila we are back that's right we drove all the way maybe about an hour and 15 hour 20 to this chick-fil-a to get this sandwich here in my kitchen and now we're going to quickly crank out our own version to be able to compare these head to head so let's go now that we've brought our sandwich back let's start out by making those brioche buns we're going to start with a cup of lukewarm water about three tablespoons of nice warm milk and for reference this is all about 110 or 115 degrees fahrenheit then while whisking i'll add in about two and a half teaspoons of active dry yeast really making sure it gets nice and spread evenly across this mixture and then i'll also slowly sprinkle in about two tablespoons of sugar then we'll let this sit for about 5 or 10 minutes for the yeast to wake up once that yeast has had some time to wake up i'm gonna crack in two medium sized eggs close this down and then mix it up once that's been mixed up well i'm going to pour this off into a bowl and set it aside now into our mixing bowl we're going to dump in three cups of bread flour about one-third cup of all-purpose flour a nice little pinch of salt and about three tablespoons of slightly softened butter for just a few moments we're going to mix this until the butter turns into the size of little crumbs now we'll place back on the dough hook attachment and slowly pour in that yeast mixture you're going to want to scrape down the sides of the bowl to get everything well combined and after about five to eight minutes our doughs become smooth and quite sticky we'll take off our dough hook pull off all that beautiful brioche dough and scrape it from the bottom of our bowl dough that's this soft and sticky always gets me really excited it's just so easy to work with and it can make even the most inexperienced home chef feel like an absolute pro just look at how smooth this thing is and i didn't even have to do that much work for now we'll plop this into a nice greased bowl toss a damp kitchen towel over the top and rest it in a nice warm place for about one and a half hours until it's doubled in size all right now that our bread has been resting for about an hour and a half here you can see it's drooping right over the side and she's quite thick i mean seriously look at that volume that we got just out of that yeast what we're first going to do here is move this out of the way and lightly flour our whole cutting board because of how sticky this is we want to make sure it doesn't stick to the board as i pull it out look at all those beautiful strands that are across that bread all of that is sort of these air bubbles that have been created by all that yeast and to feel how light and fluffy that dough is is truly satisfying that's when you know you've made a good dough let's quickly work this together and shape it into a nice little log that we can easily divide we're gonna be cutting this into about eight pieces because these are gonna expand again when we rest them the second time once i've shaped this into a nice somewhat even rectangle we'll divide this across and cut it into those eight pieces like i think i've mentioned before if you really want to make sure everything's perfectly even you can definitely go ahead and toss these on the scale but i'm typically just a little bit too lazy for that i can get them all to be a similar size to turn these bad boys into perfect little buns i like to place them down in my hand and slowly pinch from the outside in keep spinning and keep pinching until it begins to get a little bit sticky ultimately it should start to look like a soup dumpling and then once you get that flip it over on the board and where there's no flour roll it around in your hand until it makes a nice bun the idea is that the sticky part will stick to the cutting board and help you to shape this into a bun as you can see after spinning it around just a few times i've got this really nice brioche bun here i bet chick-fil-a didn't make these homemade this morning set this aside and do the same with the rest of your squares once those cute little buns are all laid out on our baking sheet toss that same damp towel over the top of them and let them sit for another half an hour now for our chicken breasts you know i oftentimes actually use dye when i'm making this kind of recipe but i figured i'd try out breasts for today and don't get me wrong i love breasts thighs are just a little bit more tender to start i just want to portion it all out to around the size that you get in your traditional chick-fil-a sandwich to do that i'm just going to eyeball it and i might need to shave off just a little bit on the bottom to make sure that we match the thickness that we're looking for too once we've got a nice piece in a square somewhat like this this piece is ready to roll i'll quickly do the same with a few more pieces of our chicken and then of course we have to brine it for the brine i always keep it nice and simple for chicken simple yet delicious first i toss all my chicken into a bowl then we're going to go in with equal parts buttermilk which of course is very acidic and gives us some of that milky flavor and then equal parts pickle juice which is my special move that i want everybody to be doing since one of you had a chicken sandwich without a few pickle slices over the top why not pump in some of that pickle flavor to that same chicken it brings everything full circle we're gonna let these sit in our brine for about 30 minutes or so to really pump in that flavor and break down some of that protein and make it more tender now of course our chick-fil-a sauce everybody's always talking about how good the chick-fil-a sauce is and honestly it is good i've been combining all sorts of sauces together since i was a kid and this is pretty much their version of their special sauce but i like it because it's got a lot of different things in it people think it's crazy but you really can't go wrong when you mix together pretty much every common condiment it actually tastes really good and other than the thousand island dressing type of thing that's pretty much how you make a special sauce mixing lots of stuff together and i will say that this chick-fil-a sauce has some pretty weird stuff in it there's just a bunch of things there that honestly you don't really need for instance why would you ever want corn syrup in here i'm just gonna take a little dab on my finger to give us a little taste to know what we're dealing with here that's the thing it's a really good sauce and it's so well balanced one of the biggest things that comes out is that dijon mustard but i also get a little bit of lemon in there and then mayo permeates the rest of the flavor there it's a great sauce but we can make it better to start i'm gonna go in with about a half cup of japanese mayonnaise you all know how much i love japanese mayonnaise maybe it's just cause it's got a little msg in there next i'll go in with about a quarter cup of really nice barbecue sauce a little splash of apple cider vinegar two tablespoons of dijon mustard a quarter cup of honey which is a really distinct part of this sauce and i love it and to finish it off just a tiny squeeze of fresh lemon juice and if you want a little pinch of salt never hurts whisk that all together until smooth notice that the chick-fil-a sauce has caramel color in there so we're not gonna get that same vibrant yellowish color that they have but as long as you generally follow that recipe i just gave you you should come out with something pretty darn similar once you've whisked it make sure that you have the right consistency it's easy to add a little bit more mayonnaise if you'd like our chick-fil-a sauce is mind-blowingly delicious and that real honey in there takes it to a level you never could have imagined set this aside once those are set prior to them going in the oven i'm going to paint them all with a nice egg wash all i've got in here is a few egg yolks and just a little bit of cold water these will give our buns a beautiful golden brown shine and just looking over right now the chick-fil-a buns i can confidently say that our buns are going to put theirs to shame guess the real question here is who's got better buns chick-fil-a or nick i literally say every single time i'm painting but painting buns or painting anything with an egg wash is really really fun the better word for it would be very satisfying it's also okay if a little bit of that egg wash falls onto the bottom of the silopat mat because that'll just cook and dry up right on the mat so it doesn't need to look perfect and pretty here once these are all painted with egg wash we're going to toss it in the oven at 400 fahrenheit for about 15 maybe 20 minutes and under it i'm also gonna put a little tray with a tad bit of water to keep it nice and steamy in there these will keep our brioche buns really moist [Music] for our chicken dredge we're going to use a two-step process today in our first bowl here we're going to crack in just one egg and then about one cup of milk whisk this up to get it well combined you can also use cream here if you like which i'm trying out today i want to see if that gives a different texture to the chicken now in our other bowl instead of all-purpose flour we're going to use a cup of potato starch i will say right now that chick-fil-a uses all-purpose flour as far as i know so this is one of the areas where i'm hoping to totally kick their butts with extra crispy chicken here i'm also going to add about a tablespoon of confectioner's sugar which is a common trick used in places like chick-fil-a kfc and more when that sugar hits the deep fryer it starts to caramelize and gives a unique delicious flavor then i'm also going to season this with just a little bit of salt i know this seems like it's lacking flavor but we've already pumped in some flavor with that pickle juice and buttermilk and our chick-fil-a sauce has tons of seasoning you know i'd put a bunch of different spices in here to really get that extra flavor there but i want to make sure we have at least a somewhat level playing field against chick-fil-a now for our dredging process we're gonna start with the chicken in that milk and egg mixture shake off any of that excess and then toss it right into our starch make sure to really fully coat that chicken and press it into that starch mixture as we don't want any spots that haven't been covered with this then once we shake off the excess we're going to double fry our chicken to get it extra extra crispy we're first going to lightly fry it 325 fahrenheit to get the chicken cooked when dropping them in we go tempura style slowly letting them weigh down into that oil until you barely sear off your fingertips after we fry it here at 325 we then go to 375 to finish it off 325 is more of the cooking process then we bump it up to 375 fahrenheit to get that crisp golden brown once these have been going for a few minutes they'll be nice and crispy but they won't have that golden brown color quite yet just look at that crackling on top of them but wait till we get that golden brown now we cover this back up and then let it climb up to 375. these have got to be some of the shiniest buns i have ever seen in my life and i made a lot of buns but just look at that glaze look at that shine perfection now that we brought this up to 375 our chicken goes back in until it's golden brown and crispy don't worry about setting a timer for this just keep an eye and don't burn it please don't burn it and after just a few minutes that chicken is ready bubbly as can be and so so crispy immediately i'm gonna hit it with a little bit of salt cause that salt will stick to the chicken right when all that fat's still bubbling on the top now we should be good to assemble let's start by cutting open our perfect perfect bun i'm honestly not sure how to describe it other than the fact that it really is a picture perfect bump and just take a look at the inside of that thing these buns are all just a work of art to make our sandwich let's keep things simple out of the pickle jar a couple of homemade pickles i never like when they put two because two doesn't fit well across a circular bun so instead i'm gonna use three i'll layer those pickles gently across the bottom of my bun then take an absolutely gorgeous piece of my fried chicken place this down on top of our bun and simply add the top now i wouldn't eat this as is because i want some sauce in there and as you know we made some chick-fil-a sauce but i want to put that on right before we eat it it's come time to do what we do best we gotta taste these right next to one another this is how i build my sandwiches pretty much anywhere i mean let's give chick-fil-a some credit this has been sitting here for a little bit longer than this one but it still goes to show you that their sandwich is quite sad and deflated and i know they haven't put an egg wash on top of this let's evenly spread that chick-fil-a sauce one thing i don't like about this type of sauce is it's a little bit more sticky and almost has that mucus-like consistency you know what i mean by that right it's just not quite as appetizing to me whereas a homemade sauce is just the same but has more natural and better flavors without that mucusy texture think of that sweet and sour sauce from mcdonald's or one of those weird sticky salad dressings to know what i'm talking about here flop that bun on top and this baby is ready to eat now as for our baby over here i'm going to gently take off that bun and then come in with our homemade chick-fil-a sauce watch that go right down the side of that sandwich and tell me that doesn't look fascinating it just looks fabulous unbeatable one might say now i want to show you one more thing before we start this is another piece of our chicken just take a listen here perfectly cooked that right there is as crispy as you can possibly get there's one more thing i want to call to everyone's attention here they're fries and i know the fries weren't really on the table with this one but at the same time they so are and as you might remember as i was driving out these fries aren't crispy they're undercooked actually and chick-fil-a that bums me out so help me to help you here my fryer's already heated up i can finish the drill for you guys i'm happy to help i'm happy to come to every location you've got and just extra crisp those fries up for you you know where to find me no first we got this beautiful well-lit baby right here i mean we didn't mess around at all with this chicken sandwich you got this and then you got this but hey i'm not gonna say anything yet we gotta try both none of this is trying to say that chick-fil-a or popeyes for a later video are bad in fact they're incredible the fact that they're able to crank out so many of these sandwiches and make them all so equally good is fascinating to me i'm just trying to get you to know that you can make one at home that's just as good if not much better let's say we just take a bite of the chick-fil-a sandwich first [Music] it's a good sandwich but i don't know suddenly it just doesn't look as good sitting next to the one that we've made homemade and yeah that chick-fil-a sauce is really good and without it unless this comes fresh and very hot out of their kitchen not as good as it could be because like i said popeye's nails that seasoning but popeye's is for a later date we'll get there for now we focus on chick-fil-a and us that's the only thing thinking about how this was when i tried it immediately out of the kitchen i give this sandwich a good eight out of ten maybe a 7.65 chicken's well cooked it's nice and crispy on the edge but again it doesn't have as much crisp as i really want there and i know it's all-purpose flour pickles also could use some work because those pickles not so good you can tell they didn't put quite enough love into those pickles that's where we come in first listen then listen again [Music] you know what i don't even know where to start it's a really good thing in this case too the fact that we've made every part of this chicken sandwich homemade allows us to really taste each and every element that's been elevated for instance in that chick-fil-a sauce i taste that honey mustard but i taste it separately the honey is so so good and fresh and real and the mustard has those really nice hints reminiscent of dijon mustard the chick-fil-a sauce itself for me blends all together but what we've made here is so much better and then don't even let me get started about the chicken that is a piece of the chicken that we made alright really good chicken yes we didn't put a ton of seasonings in that dredge that we brought it through but all the seasoning is in our sauce and that pickle juice and that buttermilk what really is important about the chicken here is that it's perfectly cooked so juicy on the inside but so so crispy on the outside it's got that shell that can soak up some of that sauce while staying crispy around the edges and giving you that crunch the pickles chef's kiss and then of course those beautiful beautiful buns i could shower in these buds i mean they're shiny they're soft they're glimmering in the sunlight they're beautiful i guess the real thing i'm trying to say is next time you pull up to a chick-fil-a the line is all the way around the entire road and highway don't wait drive back home and make your own sandwich but seriously i hope you love this video i'm so glad that we got to branch out and do something new today and if you like it please let us know in the comments below because we'll do more of it what else do you want to see me make i'll be reading all your suggestions and in the meantime don't forget to subscribe click that notifications button so you're not missing a darn thing and please toss the video a like also i'll be giving ten thousand dollars of cooking equipment away soon on my instagram so go follow there as well so you don't miss that until next time i got a great sandwich to finish

Channel: Nick DiGiovanni

Views: 4,409,685

Keywords: chicken sandwich, chicken sandwiches, chicken sandwich cooking, chicken sandwich recipe, chicken, sandwich, recipe, sandwich recipe, chicken recipe, sandwich recipes easy, sandwich recipes chicken, sandwich cooking, sandwich maker, tasty sandwich, how to make sandwich, how to make sandwich at home, nick cooking, food, nick show, nick vlog, sandwich at home, chick-fil-a sandwich, chick-fil-a sandwich recipe, sandwich food, best sandwich recipes, sandwich show, sandwich 2021

Id: 4vSRPCwBORA

Length: 16min 16sec (976 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 10 2021