Chris Morocco spent two entire days frying chicken in the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen—but came away with the perfect crispy fried chicken sandwich recipe. Try Chris' Gochujang Glazed Fried Chicken Sandwich recipe for yourself: https://bonappetit.com/recipe/gochujang-glazed-fried-chicken-sandwich
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00:00 I spent the last two days frying all of this chicken
00:03 so that I could make this.
00:05 Big part of my job is developing recipes
00:07 that thousands of you will make at home.
00:09 Today, I'm gonna show you how I developed
00:11 my crispiest chicken sandwich.
00:13 I wanna start with the thing you would normally do first
00:17 in the recipe.
00:18 I'm gonna take bone-in skin on chicken thigh
00:21 and remove the bone, but keep the skin on.
00:24 I wanna explore whether keeping the skin on
00:27 or removing it has implications for the final texture.
00:31 Chicken thighs, as opposed to boneless, skinless
00:34 chicken breast, there's a lot more fat in it.
00:37 There's a lot more richness.
00:38 It's kind of a logical sort of starting point.
00:41 You know, already I'm kinda sitting here asking myself,
00:43 well, do people wanna remove the bone
00:46 but leave the skin on?
00:47 That's something you have to do yourself.
00:48 You can't really go into a store.
00:50 Yet, million dollar idea, who's coming with me?
00:53 Come on, baby.
00:54 Boneless, skin on chicken thighs, just right there
00:58 in the package, ready to go.
01:00 Just saying.
01:01 I'm gonna start with some pre-treatments, right?
01:03 So this is what we're doing to the chicken
01:05 before it gets fried.
01:07 And there's two main elements to that.
01:08 Is there some kind of dry seasoning?
01:11 Is there marinade, some kind of liquid pre-seasoning?
01:15 These are ingredients that are fairly typical
01:18 in terms of dry rubs and seasonings in general.
01:21 The third option is really just gonna be a control,
01:24 which is salt and pepper.
01:25 If salt and pepper can get you 85% of the way there,
01:29 maybe it's worth considering.
01:30 While the chicken is just hanging out,
01:32 in the meantime, what I'm trying to accomplish
01:34 with this sandwich is a few different things.
01:37 One, it's all about texture.
01:39 I wanna make the absolute crispiest chicken sandwich.
01:42 Next, it's really important to me that this is a recipe
01:46 that can be executed in its totality
01:49 in a couple of hours max.
01:52 Third thing, I want this to have great flavor
01:55 that feels somewhat familiar,
01:57 but offers a little bit of a twist
01:59 and maybe something a bit unexpected.
02:01 Already, another decision has to be made.
02:04 I need some sort of dredge,
02:06 some way of putting a coating on the chicken
02:09 that's gonna start to build some texture in.
02:11 I'm gonna use a quarter cup of cornstarch.
02:15 Starches make things crispy.
02:17 They also help with adhesion.
02:20 A quarter cup of rice flour.
02:21 Rice flour gets very crispy,
02:24 but it doesn't necessarily take on a lot of color.
02:27 You can't ignore what the chicken's gonna look like
02:30 and how we're gonna sell this visually.
02:32 AP flour gives you great color and nutty depth of flavor.
02:37 I have a feeling that whatever I ultimately use,
02:40 it's gonna be a combination
02:41 or one or another of these things.
02:43 I'm gonna take the fry temperature
02:45 just to a very average place and just do 350.
02:48 So that's the dry rub.
02:50 This is our wet marinade, and this is salt and pepper.
02:53 I'm looking for golden brown color.
02:55 I'm looking for crispiness.
02:57 The chicken is crisp,
02:58 but it doesn't feel anything like a batter, I'll say that.
03:01 So this is our dry rub.
03:05 It's just so savory.
03:08 I think a little bit of sweetness in there.
03:10 It would just balance a little bit
03:11 of the heat of the chili flake.
03:13 All right, so now we have our wet marinade here.
03:15 I'm not liking this nearly as much as I thought I would.
03:17 There's a certain thing that happens
03:20 when soy sauce gets cooked out really hard.
03:23 The flavor just gets very closed down.
03:25 It almost doesn't taste like soy sauce anymore.
03:28 Maybe it's like the soy needs to come out.
03:30 Like maybe, and what's the sesame oil doing in there?
03:33 I think we gotta move away from it.
03:35 All right, let's taste salt and pepper
03:36 before we get too far ahead of ourselves here.
03:39 Even salt and pepper plus that dry dredge
03:43 already has added up to something
03:45 that feels relatively dynamic.
03:47 I think I'm officially moving on from the wet marinade.
03:50 It's starting to introduce some complexity here
03:53 that's not really needed at this juncture.
03:55 And flavor-wise, the dry treatment was a good bit better.
04:00 Okay, so now I'm gonna try two different versions
04:04 of our dry rub.
04:05 So the first is garlic and onion powders,
04:08 gochugaru, salt, pepper, light brown sugar.
04:10 The gochugaru is taking the place
04:12 of the Aleppo-style pepper.
04:14 A little less spicy, a little more inherent sweetness,
04:17 so really nicely balanced.
04:19 I can use more of it
04:21 without making this overwhelmingly spicy.
04:23 The second is gonna be all of those things
04:25 plus freshly grated garlic and ginger.
04:29 Again, I'm just gonna do a nugget in each.
04:32 This one is sort of like, what have I done?
04:34 It's like, it's kind of a paste.
04:36 It doesn't really want to adhere.
04:38 Like it's kind of bull [beep]
04:39 but maybe bull [beep] in a good way.
04:42 I'm using the same mix of starches and flour
04:45 that I used before.
04:47 That's our pasty guy.
04:48 Here is the dry, dry rub.
04:50 This is the dry rub without the fresh garlic and ginger.
04:54 Really nicely balanced.
04:55 I think the sweetness is very much welcome here.
04:57 It's really nice integrated flavors here.
05:00 All right, so this is the version
05:02 that has the fresh garlic and ginger.
05:05 They're incrementally better, but is it worth it?
05:08 I don't think so.
05:09 As much as it pains me to rely on a dry rub
05:12 when it's like something we've done a lot here
05:16 in the test kitchen,
05:17 it's having an appreciable benefit in very little time.
05:21 And that's getting us to that end point
05:23 of making this a recipe that's doable in a couple of hours.
05:27 Let's assume that we're working with some version
05:30 of this or similar dry brine.
05:32 And let's move on to batter.
05:35 These are gonna be two versions of wet batters.
05:38 These both have cornstarch,
05:39 but this is rice flour and this is AP flour.
05:42 I'm putting baking powder in each one.
05:44 Seltzer in batters makes things really light and very crisp.
05:49 The bubbling action of the carbonation
05:52 helps open up the structure of the batter
05:55 and create like a really nice open lacy network.
05:58 Here is rice flour and here is wheat flour.
06:01 I mean, right off the bat,
06:03 I don't love what's happening visually with either one.
06:06 Like this laciness is pretty fun on the wheat flour one,
06:10 but neither one feels like it got
06:13 like quite as like deep golden brown as I'm looking for.
06:17 Also the gochugaru,
06:19 it's like forming these brown specks in there
06:21 that I think are just a little bit visually unappealing.
06:25 Rice flour plus cornstarch is giving it a nice crunch,
06:29 but it's subtle, not nearly as like pronounced
06:32 as I would like.
06:33 And this is the version with wheat flour.
06:35 The flavor is a little bit anemic,
06:37 really need to punch up the seasoning a little bit more.
06:40 I think the gochugaru here might be a mistake.
06:43 I'm also just not getting the level of crispiness
06:46 that I really want here.
06:47 What I'd like to do is take the rice and cornstarch mixture,
06:51 the wheat flour and cornstarch mixture,
06:54 and try a different liquid.
06:58 Vodka is an interesting choice
06:59 because it will add fluidity
07:02 without adding actual water content.
07:06 It evaporates very quickly when cooked,
07:09 and it doesn't activate gluten.
07:12 I wanna see if the vodka can aid me
07:14 in the quest for crispiness.
07:16 So you can see two very different consistencies,
07:20 the rice flour mixture, very tight,
07:22 and then the wheat flour mixture,
07:24 just a little bit looser.
07:25 All right, so that's the rice flour.
07:32 So there's a lightness and there's a crispiness here
07:34 with the rice flour version
07:36 that I think is pretty compelling,
07:38 but flavor-wise, it's wanting.
07:41 I'm gonna try the wheat flour version.
07:43 The wheat flour version's kind of insane.
07:46 It's so light and crisp.
07:48 The texture of the batter is such
07:50 that it feels like it's been aerated.
07:52 It hasn't held on to very much grease at all.
07:55 It's just a little bit more flavor going on there as well.
07:58 I find that really interesting.
08:00 I think the vodka's definitely having a major effect.
08:05 Look at where we were.
08:07 This kind of tempura-like shell,
08:09 whereas this feels like it's somewhere in between tempura
08:13 and Southern-style fried chicken to me,
08:15 the way that it's really held on to that wheat flour
08:18 and created these crags.
08:20 I would like to go again on vodka and wheat.
08:24 I wanna see if I can make it a touch thicker,
08:26 so I'm gonna remake the dry rub.
08:28 Instead of gochugaru, I'm gonna use just regular paprika.
08:32 Just gonna add a little bit of color
08:34 and a little bit of fruitiness.
08:36 One thing that will help batter adhere
08:40 is if you pre-coat your meat in starch
08:44 or flour of some kind.
08:46 I think cornstarch makes the most sense
08:48 just because it has a great ability to get things to adhere.
08:52 Definitely a thicker batter.
08:54 Is it too thick?
08:54 I don't know.
08:56 We lost the sort of shagginess there.
08:59 I just feel like the thicker batter is taking longer
09:01 to get crispy and to brown, and that sucks.
09:04 That's not where we wanna be.
09:06 So as I feared, the skin did not get crispy
09:10 under that thicker shell.
09:12 That cornstarch on the chicken, as well,
09:16 I gotta say, it just formed a little bit
09:18 of a gummy coating.
09:19 Suddenly, everything about this feels wrong.
09:22 - It kind of reminds me of a fried Mars bar.
09:25 - Oh, Jesus.
09:26 - It's a little bit fish and chips batter.
09:29 If you want a crust that can hold any glaze or sauce,
09:34 maybe you want a little more dry component
09:37 kind of packed in.
09:38 But the chicken, it's very juicy,
09:41 and it's seasoned very well.
09:43 How are you envisioning this fried chicken sandwich visually?
09:47 - Part of me wants it to feel textural enough
09:51 that you could soak it in a very tight glaze
09:54 like you do sometimes with a Korean fried chicken.
09:56 - You just have to be careful that it won't take away
09:59 whatever crisp and crust that you're working
10:02 so hard to achieve.
10:03 So it might literally be a brush on top
10:06 rather than a soak or a dip.
10:09 - You know, listen, I'm not where I wanna be,
10:11 and that's okay.
10:12 For the next version, I wanna stick with a lighter batter.
10:16 I'm going with a higher proportion of AP flour.
10:19 Go up to a third of a cup water plus a half cup vodka.
10:22 One of these is gonna have cornstarch,
10:24 other, no cornstarch.
10:26 I love how we have a coating
10:30 that's following the natural shape of the chicken.
10:33 We made relatively minimal differences here,
10:36 but we went from this to this.
10:38 That's a huge difference.
10:41 Visually, I think we're in a much better place.
10:43 The version without the cornstarch
10:46 seems to absorb a little bit more of the oil underneath,
10:50 be a little bit greasier.
10:52 Flavor is good.
10:54 I mean, it's very nicely seasoned.
10:57 It's almost right on the edge of being over-seasoned.
11:00 The batter is very light and crisp.
11:03 I mean, it really is so crispy,
11:05 but it's a different expression of crispiness
11:07 than I fear than like what most people are gonna want
11:11 when they hear the crispiest chicken.
11:14 Let's see how the version with cornstarch did.
11:16 It's very, very good.
11:19 I'm loving the coating.
11:21 I'm loving the ratio of sort of the exterior
11:24 total amount of batter to chicken.
11:26 Got just enough of everything
11:28 to kind of do one more pass here.
11:29 I wanna just get a full piece of chicken in
11:33 so that we can at least experiment
11:35 with like a couple of quick finishers tonight.
11:37 I'm taking the skin off of this
11:39 'cause I just have a feeling,
11:41 like honestly, like calling for boneless skinless,
11:43 you can buy this.
11:45 It's ready to go.
11:46 I'm curious to see what the difference is,
11:48 frankly, without it.
11:49 I want just like a little finisher for the chicken.
11:53 See if I can make a glaze that can be brushed over.
11:56 Kenji, in his recipe,
11:58 sort of laid out two sort of possible versions
12:01 that were really compelling.
12:03 One is sort of like a finishing glaze
12:05 that's more sweet and spicy,
12:07 like it's gochujang based.
12:09 Another was more of like a sweeter version with soy sauce.
12:14 I really wanna see if we can kind of bring this
12:16 to a very full on spicy, deep place flavor wise.
12:21 Gonna do cornstarch treatment.
12:24 So the glaze, I wanna pull it down until it's pretty tight.
12:29 So a very small amount will really coat the chicken
12:33 and deliver like a huge flavor upgrade.
12:36 Really loving the shagginess of this batter.
12:40 What's interesting to me is just like,
12:41 it's texture on fried chicken
12:44 that's just presenting in a really new way.
12:48 The increased proportion of AP flour,
12:51 increased proportion of vodka had real benefit.
12:56 I wanna set one of these up as a sandwich
12:58 just to see where we get with that.
13:00 I'm liking the cross section here.
13:03 Flavors are great.
13:07 You know, the gochujang just really brings
13:09 so much intensity.
13:11 That glaze is working really hard for me.
13:13 The crunch isn't so pronounced, which is good and bad.
13:17 - Hi. - Hi.
13:18 - Look at this guy.
13:20 It is recalling a Nashville hot chicken vibe.
13:23 There's a lot going on.
13:24 - Yeah.
13:25 - But very flavorful.
13:26 Definite improvement on the crust from the previous version.
13:30 I would say it's currently in this state,
13:33 it's a juicy, glazy fried chicken sandwich.
13:35 - Okay.
13:36 Positives of the sandwich are that first of all,
13:39 really great flavor.
13:40 Two, it's fast.
13:42 You can go from, you know,
13:44 pulling raw chicken out of the fridge
13:46 to eating the sandwich in under an hour.
13:49 That's really, really different
13:51 from most other fried chicken preparations, full stop.
13:55 Overall, really good first day.
13:58 Little bit more to go.
13:59 I woke up early and I was tossing and turning
14:01 and I was just thinking about the fact that it feels like,
14:05 even though it's not a lot of effort,
14:07 creating this batter that is getting us
14:09 to this wonderful shaggy, craggy place,
14:12 is that creating the best possible chicken experience
14:16 for the application of a sandwich.
14:20 I suddenly had the thought like,
14:22 what if instead of making a batter,
14:24 if we were to consider a dry dredge
14:28 for our final step pre-fry,
14:31 what if the vodka was the wash?
14:34 What would that mean?
14:36 That's kind of what I want to explore.
14:38 New day, new me, same chicken, let's go.
14:41 The dry rub is gonna remain unchanged.
14:43 A seasoned dry dredge today rather than a batter,
14:46 but with the caveat that I'm using vodka as the wash.
14:50 Instead of cornstarch, I'm gonna try potato starch.
14:53 My hope is that the potato starch
14:55 will get even crispier than the cornstarch did.
14:58 Double down on my seasonings
14:59 and then I'm gonna do sesame seeds.
15:02 Sesame seeds are gonna bring crunch as well as flavor.
15:06 I'm making the gochujang glaze
15:08 mostly the same as yesterday.
15:10 I'm also gonna add some toasted sesame oil
15:13 just to double down on some sesame flavor.
15:16 Today I'm going back to a skin-on boneless version
15:19 just to see if I can get that skin really crisp
15:22 within the dry coating.
15:24 So we're gonna do that technique
15:26 of pressing the chicken into the starch
15:29 before it goes into the vodka wash.
15:32 Feels a little crazy.
15:35 Does it seem crazy?
15:36 'Cause it feels a little crazy on this side.
15:39 This is fun.
15:39 Think the vodka wash might've just taken
15:43 that potato starch right off, but I don't know.
15:44 Maybe we had some clingage.
15:46 So here is our chicken we just fried.
15:50 It's not quite as like crunchy crispy
15:55 as I was expecting/hoping it to be,
15:58 but there's a delicateness to the crispiness
16:02 and there's a really great sensation
16:05 of having these kind of craggy bits
16:08 adhering to the chicken.
16:09 I'm barely getting the sesame seeds.
16:12 I'm certainly not mad that they're there.
16:14 And I think, you know, that plus the toasted sesame
16:17 and the glaze is gonna be pretty interesting.
16:19 So I'm gonna do two pieces this time,
16:21 mainly just 'cause I wanna see if a bigger piece
16:24 is able to just fry longer and get crispier still.
16:28 I'm not gonna do the potato starch pre-coating
16:31 before doing the wash this time.
16:32 I don't think it's staying on in enough quantity
16:35 to make it worthwhile.
16:36 Oh yeah, punching up the seasoning
16:41 really made a difference.
16:42 I kind of dig the fact that it's like a little bit KFC,
16:46 but with something else going on.
16:47 So the bigger one went an extra minute
16:50 and it's holding up nicely,
16:51 but we lost some adhesion chicken to dredge there.
16:56 The chicken wants to kind of shrink, bind up.
16:58 I mean, flavor is great,
17:00 but glaze is like bright, it's sweet, it's hot,
17:03 but it invites another bite.
17:05 It's just really warm, lovely balance.
17:08 Glaze is good to go.
17:09 I just wanna push the texture of the chicken
17:12 a little bit further.
17:13 This time we're gonna do thigh and breast.
17:15 So I'm gonna do an egg.
17:17 Could be part of what really helps bind chicken and dredge.
17:21 Ultimately, it's the dredge that's getting crispy, right?
17:25 So the more you can get on there,
17:27 the crispier the sensation you're gonna get.
17:29 I'm also just really curious about what happens
17:31 when alcohol and egg comes into contact with each other.
17:35 Is it gonna like cook it over time
17:38 or is it gonna be all right?
17:39 I don't know.
17:39 I have boneless, skinless chicken breast.
17:41 So I got inspired by this technique
17:44 that I saw from David Shim,
17:46 where he takes a short rib and he scores it very deeply
17:50 as a way of increasing the surface area
17:52 to absorb a marinade.
17:53 And it got me thinking about
17:54 how could you take a chicken breast
17:57 and kind of do the same thing,
17:58 and kind of open it up so that you get more surface area
18:02 to get better coating of your dry rub.
18:05 So I'm gonna season both of these.
18:07 So the egg's gonna wanna bind to the starch,
18:09 and then the flour's gonna wanna bind to the egg.
18:12 And away we shall go.
18:15 Definitely got good crisp on both.
18:20 The egg is grabbing incrementally more
18:24 of both the potato starch that is on the chicken itself
18:28 and on the dredge, which is ultimately on top of it.
18:32 For all the things happening here,
18:34 the drama of all the interventions we did
18:37 to kind of get to this point,
18:38 I don't think are being validated
18:40 by a superior chicken experience.
18:43 I'm primed to prefer the boneless, skinless chicken thigh
18:46 just because I think it is by far the easiest option.
18:50 This is the crispiness I want in a piece of chicken,
18:53 especially if it's going into a sandwich
18:55 and gonna get coated with a sauce.
18:57 This is our one, boneless, skinless chicken thigh.
18:59 Good adhesion, great flavor,
19:01 and just a little bit more bite to that dredge.
19:03 It's fried chicken as you know it, but with a twist.
19:07 I'm feeling really positive about this direction.
19:10 Compared to yesterday, this is more foolproof,
19:13 and frankly, it's cooked up crispier,
19:15 and it's more delicious.
19:17 So here we are.
19:18 - I really appreciate how seasoned this chicken is.
19:21 Just like, it's very delicious on its own.
19:23 I feel like the kuchung glies, it's a little,
19:26 I don't know that I want toasted sesame oil.
19:28 It's kind of bringing down the flavor,
19:31 where it's like bright and spicy.
19:33 I want a little sweetness.
19:35 - I am wondering like how to sort of finish things off.
19:38 - It can be as simple as a punched up mayo swipe,
19:42 or maybe it's like a yogurt zhuzh, I don't know.
19:46 - Yeah, I'm still thinking through that one.
19:47 Now that I feel pretty good about the chicken treatment
19:49 and about the glaze,
19:51 I'm gonna get the chicken set up in the dry rub
19:53 and let it sit for about 20 minutes
19:55 just so it can absorb a little bit more flavor.
19:57 Same dredge as last time.
19:59 I'm using proportionately less vodka,
20:01 just as a way to thin the egg out
20:03 so it doesn't form a puffy, bready coating.
20:06 Glaze, I am gonna try taking out the toasted sesame oil.
20:09 Hannah really didn't seem to be a big fan of it.
20:12 While that's resting, I'm gonna work on my other condiment.
20:15 And I'm thinking I want ultimate simplicity here.
20:19 What if it's as simple as mixing some mayonnaise
20:23 with the bread and butter pickle brine?
20:25 So it's sweet, a little tangy,
20:26 but not thinning it out to the point
20:28 that it's gonna wanna get super runny.
20:31 But it's just not quite giving me the sharpness that I want
20:35 'cause I've already used rice vinegar once in the recipe.
20:38 I'm gonna try that next.
20:40 I also think some of the dill in there could be really fun.
20:43 I like that.
20:45 Just punchy enough, but it's creamy.
20:47 Feel good.
20:48 First, we're going into the potato starch.
20:50 Do the egg wash, dredge.
20:52 I've been taking a quiet gauge on the timing
20:55 of the frying process,
20:56 and we're kind of netting out around six minutes.
21:00 I mean, right off the bat, there is color, there is crunch.
21:04 I'm loving the sesame seeds on there.
21:07 Yet again, I just feel very gratified by the fact
21:10 that we chose a simpler approach
21:12 that also managed to feel better
21:15 for the application we were putting this food through.
21:18 [chicken sizzling]
21:21 Done.
21:23 Overall look screams fried chicken sandwich.
21:26 Something crispy, something saucy, something crunchy,
21:30 and it's on two pieces of bread.
21:32 All right, Hannah.
21:33 - It looks beautiful.
21:35 I would pay money for this, I think.
21:37 [both laughing]
21:38 The flavor is very good.
21:40 The chicken is so juicy.
21:41 - I'm so happy with that.
21:43 - Is it just mayo?
21:44 Is it flavored with anything?
21:45 - It's mayo with a little bit of the rice vin and dill.
21:49 - Oh my God, I'm like, what is that?
21:50 I thought it was just extra fragrant pickles.
21:53 Fun, the dill is really coming through.
21:55 - The bite overall feels very balanced
21:58 in terms of fresh elements, cooling elements,
22:02 a little bit of heat, but not really that much.
22:04 - And I think whoever is looking
22:06 for a fried chicken sandwich,
22:08 whether it's something closer to like a classic style
22:11 or something more adventurous,
22:12 like they will be happy with this.
22:15 I really like this.
22:15 And honestly, the fact that we were able to do this
22:18 in an hour, I'm really like,
22:20 I'm just in such a different place than I was yesterday.
22:22 I feel like we ended up in a great spot.
22:25 It's very rarely a waste of time
22:28 to go through the exercise
22:30 of trying multiple versions of something.
22:32 That just adds to your bank of knowledge
22:34 of how certain ingredients and techniques
22:37 are gonna interact and pay off in one way or the other.
22:40 And that's like the real value.
22:42 It's being able to say,
22:43 hey, I tried all these different versions
22:46 and this one really represents like the best possible payoff.
22:50 You can find the recipe in the description below.
22:53 I hope you make it.
22:54 Let me know how it goes.
22:55 Do you know about my other million dollar idea?
23:00 Pasta that's got the ridges on the inside and out.
23:04 That's good.
23:05 Rigatissimo.
23:07 We could go somewhere with this.