Saturday, February 6, 2010

Fried Chicken Throwdown: ad hoc at home v momofuku

Recently my foodie friend Adam (follow him @adampasick) and I decided to pit our newest cookbooks against each other: Thomas Keller's ad hoc at home versus David Chang's Momofuku. I'm all for the recent fried chicken craze and couldn't wait to see if Keller's Buttermilk Fried Chicken (p. 16) could beat Chang's Fried Chicken (p. 88) with Octo Vinaigrette (pg. 107).




Keller comes off as exacting, precise and intense - even in a cookbook about family-style cooking. (Case in point: My cousin, who did an internship at the French Laundry, pointed out the picture of the spices on page 17, noting that there was a certain point when a new dictum was issued: tape labels for spices need to be cut straight with scissors, not ripped with jagged edges. Geez!) Chang is just as intense, if not more complicated - not sure when I'll be taking a blow torch to a pig head to remove the stubborn hair tufts - yet laid back about swapping ingredients "that are a total pain in the ass to find". Love that he has a dirty mouth. The one question he always asks about a dish: "Is it fucking delicious?" Amen.



Who doesn't love friend chicken? But these two recipes couldn't be more different. And these are not school night recipes - both require weekend warrior effort.



The Momofuku chicken is brined, steamed, fried and then doused in octo vinaigrette (which is crack addictive). The ad hoc chicken is brined too - for 12 hours in a lemon-herb brine and then double dipped in buttermilk and paprika-seasoned flour.




Since the chicken is brined with salt and sugar, it doesn't need much time in the fryer but it browns up nice and quick. A quick soak in octo vinaigrette (garlic, ginger, chile, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, grapeseed oil, sesame oil + sugar) and you're done. Eating resulted in food buzz moans.


The herb-lemon brine did make the meat intensely juicy and flavorful (next time I'll measure more carefully since I halved the recipe and only used bone-in chicken breasts). The double-dip method of seasoned flour, then buttermilk, then another dip in seasoned flour did make a tender, light, flaky crust. The deep fried rosemary = you just took it to 11.

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