Chicken that actually fits on a sandwich | Garlic and mustard aioli

this is something lauren used to have me make for her all the time it's a not fried chicken breast sandwich but unlike most chicken sandwiches the breast here is properly sized and shaped for a sandwich and i top it with this garlic aioli that i used to make with raw egg yolk but now i know that garlic itself is an emulsifier so you don't have to use egg if you don't want to one of many reasons i am generally not a fan of chicken breast is the modern product is just so huge it's far too thick for a sandwich so i'm going to get two sandwiches out of this one large breast and i could cut it in half there but if i tilt the angle thusly i can get rounder more sandwich shaped pieces after i butterfly them and note that my knife is like two thirds of the way up from the skinny tail end the half on the left there is thinner so if i want the two pieces to have roughly equal mass i've got to cut up here now to butterfly them generally when you're butterflying things you want to start by cutting into the thicker side which is that the cut side i'm slicing parallel to the board about halfway up from the board open it like a book and that seam is going to add thickness to what was the thinner end of that piece it's now quite even thickness all around same deal with this one cut into the thicker side which is the cut side stop before you go all the way through open her up you could trim that little bit down there to make it more sandwich shaped but these are going to be great as is hey note the grain of the meat the meat fibers all running parallel to each other the fibers on the surface tend to dry out during cooking and then they feel stringy as you bite through them this can be reduced by scoring the meat very shallow slices against the grain it's perpendicular to the meat fibers we're shortening those meat fibers they change direction up here and so must i same deal on the other side very very shallow slashes if you don't have a very sharp knife just skip this step you'll probably end up doing more harm than good here on the uncut side of the meat the grain is harder to see but look close you can see all those parallel fibers just a little scoring now and we won't get any long strings of dry meat between our teeth later the extra surface area we've created will also enhance absorption of our brine i'm usually not a fan of wet brines they give poultry the texture of lunch meat but that actually works for a sandwich and the added moisture from the brine is particularly good for thin pieces of white meat which are very apt to dry out into a cup 240 mils of water i'll put about 15 grams of salt which is a tablespoon of this morton kosher this is for a quick 30 to 60 minute brine if you wanted to let this brine overnight or something i would use half as much salt i'm putting in an equal quantity of sugar sugar is one of the flavor enhancing molecules that can actually fit through meat membranes during a brine no need to boil this or anything just give it a stir if the salt doesn't all dissolve now it will as the meat sits in here get all those submerged in the brine i'll set that aside and if i'm going to reuse this cutting board and knife i've gotta wash it because everything else we cut we're gonna be eating raw aioli it's gonna start with fresh garlic i'd say at least one big clove per sandwich i'll get them peeled and finely chopped to start with and then i'll grab my coarse salt sprinkle that over the top and use the salt as an abrasive to help me grind the garlic down with the side of my knife we need to kind of juice the garlic pieces we need access to all of the emulsifying proteins and fructans and saponins that are inside the garlic tissue grab a small dish that's good for stirring and in goes that garlic you could do this whole sauce in a mortar and pestle instead i'm also going to put in a roughly equal quantity of dijon mustard highly optional but i like how it tastes and mustard is also an emulsifier which means i don't have to use quite as much raw garlic which is of course very strong now for just a few drops and i mean a few drops of oil i'm using extra virgin olive oil but if that's too strong for you use a more refined oil get that stirred in until it disappears and then go in with another little splash you can add more and more oil with each go you just can't overwhelm an emulsion with too much oil straight away there won't be enough other stuff in the bowl to get in between the oil and divide it into tiny droplets that can then be coated with emulsifiers there's a reason people use egg yolk for this yolk is a much more powerful emulsifier garlic in my experience can only emulsify about three times its own weight in oil but we've got the mustard in there helping out too i think i got about three tablespoons of oil in there now and check how thick and glossy that spread is hey what would happen if you stirred in too much oil well eventually the aioli would start getting thinner and look kind of greasy like that there just aren't any emulsifying molecules left for all this new oil i'm pouring in and so i have tiny bits of emulsion swimming around in a sea of grease if this happens to you no problem just peel and chop another garlic clove grind it down with salt dump it in there and it may take some very aggressive stirring before the emulsion reforms but it should happen eventually again you're basically chopping up all of the free oil in there into droplets to be coated by emulsifiers from the garlic and there you go a totally solid gelatinous spread for our sandwiches it does taste extremely strong right now if you or anyone you'll be kissing later can't handle that much raw garlic just let this sit overnight that pungent allicin in raw garlic will break down significantly by tomorrow for tonight maybe just make a hellofresh the sponsor of this video and america's number one meal kit we got a fit and wholesome box this time let's go with that one i love soup hello fresh's 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three surprise gifts link and code are in the description for up to 16 free meals thank you hellofresh okay toppings i don't usually like tomatoes on burgers i just think they are redundant with the ketchup but on this chicken sandwich i definitely want a big slice of tomato our aioli is delicious but it's not sweet or terribly acidic and most food needs both of those things a little nice fresh lettuce and i have little interest in nearly any sandwich that doesn't have some pickles on it i'll grab some foil and wrap my culinary brick aka a brick i found outside wrap it in foil to keep everything clean you don't need this but some kind of heavy flat weight really helps time to fish the chicken out of the brine you could just lay it straight into the pan but it'll brown better and spit way less if you blot it dry on some paper towel first you certainly don't want additional salt on the surface but i do want plenty of pepper get a pan wide enough to receive the brick later get it heating to medium medium-low i just want to get it hot enough that butter will do not that that is way too hot there nice foamy butter you could use olive oil but butter tells you how hot your pan is and it really spruces up the super lean chicken breast get plenty of fat in the pan regardless because this meat is liable to stick pepper side down mop up all that butter i'll grind pepper on the reverse side real quick and then time for the culinary brick you could use another heavy pan anything that's flat heat safe and heavy will work or don't use any weight but the weight enhances browning and it helps you get a flat piece of meat that lies perfectly on a bun an ovoid chicken breast is very awkward to eat inside a sandwich the meat's been in there for two minutes let's check it not brown enough yet might need to turn the heat up with a piece of meat this thin you can just look at the side of it and see how far it's cooked through after three minutes total these are looking more than halfway cooked inside i'll go ahead and flip they shouldn't stick much if you brown them right but don't go crazy with browning chicken breast a little brown on these goes a long way now real quick i'll poke the center of the meat to see how it feels when i know it's still raw in the center i can feel it's still a little squishy a cheap thermometer is next to useless for taking the temperature of something so thin you're going to get false readings from the hotter meats that's closer to the surface so i'm just going to use my senses it's been a minute since i flipped i'll poke again and i can feel the center feels much more firm it's bouncy not squishy by the time these rest they'll be done but i will flip them one more time remember the brick touched raw meat and then it touched the cooked meat so out of an abundance of caution i'm going to give the first side a real quick second sear to kill any surface bacteria out to rest again with a piece of meat this thin you're going to get a lot of heat traveling from the outside into the inside if anything you want to pull these when they're a hair undercooked at the center while my pan is still hot i can toast the cut sides of my buns these are brioche buns brioche is a rich sweet bread i usually think it's overkill with burgers but with something as lean as chicken breast i think brioche is a nice compliment i'mma let this bread and the chicken cool for like five minutes if our aioli gets too hot when we put it on there the emulsion will break and it won't be thick and creamy anymore lettuce as a water barrier and then tomato check how nicely that piece of chicken fits on the bun if it's not enough meat for you make it a double stack on two pieces they still cook much better if you cut them thin a nice layer of that aioli on there very strong raw garlic flavor but again if you don't like that just let it sit for a day at room temperature or a few days in the fridge a nice layer of my beloved dill pickle chips the aioli holds them in place lid on and i think that looks awfully nice don't you it's been a few years but lauren used to have me make these for her all the time of course back then i used raw egg in the sauce and i'm not missing the egg at all in there now okay let's do the significantly less healthy version bun aioli tomato slice american cheese because it melts so well chicken let's do another layer of cheese and chicken the cheese between the chicken pieces will keep them from sliding around on top of each other i got my pickles and no lettuce i do not like cooked lettuce more foamy butter in the pan lay that baby in there and we already have a weight prepared boom a nice pressed chicken and cheese melt about a minute and a half later whoops she's sticking a little there we go flip her over mop some butter so it doesn't stick again replace the weight and american cheese melts so well that i shouldn't need to cover this but if you're using another kind of cheese you could press it for another minute rip the foil off the brick and use the foil to tent the sandwich for a sec trap some steam get that cheese melted again i'll give this a final extra flip because that brick had touched raw chicken out we go and this is not the most beautiful sandwich i've ever made but feels real good as i cut through it looks good inside tastes real good especially with those pickles i hope lauren doesn't ask me to make this version for her very often too much of that would wreck me

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 1,241,372

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Id: OiO_Ame4YAI

Length: 11min 35sec (695 seconds)

Published: Thu May 05 2022