How A Pro Chef Develops A Recipe From Scratch | Bon Appétit

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. Come along for the journey and see how he developed his Gochujang Glazed Fried Chicken Sandwich recipe, step by step.

Try Chris’ Gochujang Glazed Fried Chicken Sandwich recipe for yourself: https://bonappetit.com/recipe/gochujang-glazed-fried-chicken-sandwich

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I spent the last two days frying all of this chicken so that I could make this big part of my job is developing recipes that thousands of you will make at home today I’m going to show you how I developed my crispiest chicken sandwich I want to start with the thing you would normally do first in the recipe I’m gonna take bone-in skin on chicken thigh and remove the bone but keep the skin on I want to explore whether keeping the skin on or removing it has implications for the final texture chicken thighs as

Opposed to boneless skinless chicken breast there’s a lot more fat in it there’s a lot more richness it’s kind of a logical sort of starting point you know already I’m kind of sitting here asking myself well do people want to remove the bone but leave the skin on

That’s something you have to do yourself you can’t really go into a store yet million dollar idea who’s coming with me come on baby boneless skin on chicken thighs just right there in like the package ready to go just saying I’m gonna start with some pre-treatments

Right so this is what we’re doing to the chicken before it gets fried and there’s two main elements to that is there some kind of dry seasoning is there marinade some kind of a liquid pre-seasoning these are ingredients that are like fairly typical in terms of dry rubs and

Seasonings in general the third option is really just going to be a control which is salt and pepper if salt and pepper can get you 85 percent of the way there maybe it’s worth considering while the chicken is just hanging out in the meantime what I’m trying to accomplish

With this sandwich is a few different things one it’s all about texture I want to make the absolute crispiest chicken sandwich next it’s really important to me that this is a recipe that can be executed in its totality in a couple of hours max third thing I want this to

Have great flavor that feels somewhat familiar but offers a little bit of a Twist and maybe something a bit unexpected already another decision has to be made I need some sort of dredge some way of putting a coating on the chicken that’s gonna start to build some

Texture in but I’m gonna use a quarter cup of cornstarch starches is make things crispy they also help with like adhesion a quarter cup of rice flour rice flour gets like very crispy but it doesn’t necessarily take on a lot of color I can’t ignore what the chicken is

Going to look like and how we’re going to sell this visually AP flower gives you great color and nutty depth of flavor I have a feeling that whatever I ultimately use it’s going to be a combination or one or another of these things I’m going to take the fry

Temperature just a very average place and just do 350. so that’s the dry rub this is our wet marinade and this is salt and pepper I’m looking for golden brown color I’m looking for crispiness the chicken is crisp but it doesn’t feel anything like a batter I’ll say that

So this is our dry rub it’s just so Savory I think a little bit of sweetness in there it would just balance a little bit of the heat of the chili flake all right so now we have our wet marinade here I’m not liking this nearly as much as I thought I would

There’s a certain thing that happens when soy sauce gets cooked out like really hard the flavor just gets very closed down it almost doesn’t taste like soy sauce anymore maybe it’s like the soy needs to come out like maybe like and what’s the sesame oil doing in there

I think we got to move away from it all right let’s taste salt and pepper before we get too far out of ourselves here like even salt and pepper plus that dry dredge already has added up to something that feels relatively Dynamic I think I’m officially moving on from the wet

Marinade it’s starting to introduce some complexity here that’s not really needed at this juncture and flavor-wise the dry treatment was a good bit better okay so now I’m gonna try two different versions of our dry rub so the first is garlic and onion powders gochugaru salt pepper

Light brown sugar the go-to garu is taking the place of the Aleppo style pepper a little less spicy a little more inherent sweetness so really nicely balanced I can use more of it without making this overwhelmingly spicy the second is going to be all of those things plus freshly grated garlic and

Ginger again I’m just gonna do a nugget in each this one is sort of like what have I done it’s like it’s kind of a paste it doesn’t really want to adhere like it’s kind of bold but maybe in a good way I’m using the same mix of

Starches and flour that I used before that’s our pasty guide here is the dry dry rub this is the dry rub without the fresh garlic and ginger really nicely balanced I think the sweetness is very much welcome here it’s really nice integrated flavors here all right so this is the version that

Has the fresh garlic and ginger they’re incrementally better but is it worth it I don’t think so as much as it pains me to rely on a dry rub when it’s like something we’ve done a lot here in The Test Kitchen it’s having an appreciable benefit and very little time

And that’s getting us to that end point of making this a recipe that’s doable in a couple of hours Let’s assume that we’re working with some version of this or similar dry Brine and let’s move on to batter these are going to be two versions of wet batters these both have

Cornstarch but this is rice flour and this is AP flour I’m putting baking powder in each one Seltzer in batters makes things really light and very crisp the bubbling action of the carbonation helps open up the structure of the batter and create like a really nice

Open Lacy Network here is rice flour and here is wheat flour I mean right off the bat I don’t love what’s happening visually with either one like this laciness is pretty fun on the wheat flour one but neither one feels like it got like quite as like deep golden brown

As I’m looking for also the gochugaru it’s like forming these brown specks in there that I think are just a little bit visually unappealing rice flour plus cornstarch is giving it a nice crunch but it’s it’s subtle not nearly as like pronounced as I would like and this is the version with wheat

Flour flavor is a little bit anemic really need to punch up the seasoning a little bit more I think the gochugaro here might be a mistake I’m also just not getting the level of crispiness that I really want here what I’d like to do is take the rice and cornstarch mixture

The wheat flour and cornstarch mixture and try a different liquid vodka is an interesting choice because it will add fluidity without adding actual water content it evaporates very quickly when cooked and it doesn’t activate gluten I want to see if the vodka and can Aid me

In the Quest for crispiness so you can see two very different consistencies the rice flour mixture very tight and then the wheat flour mixture just a little bit looser all right so that’s the rice flour it’s like there’s a lightness and there’s a crispiness here with the rice

Flour version that I think is pretty compelling but flavor-wise it’s wanting I’m gonna try the wheat flour version the wheat flour version is kind of insane it’s so light and crisp the texture of the batter is such that it feels like it’s like been aerated hasn’t

Held on to very much grease at all it’s just a little bit more flavor going on there as well I find that really interesting I think the vodka is definitely having a major effect you know like look at where we were it’s kind of like tempura-like shell whereas

This feels like it’s somewhere in between like tempura and sort of southern style fried chicken to me the way that it’s like really held onto that wheat flour and created these Crags I would like to go again on vodka and wheat I want to see if I can make it a

Touch thicker so I’m going to remake the dry rub instead of gochugaro I’m gonna use just regular paprika just gonna add a little bit of color and a little bit of fruitiness one thing that will help batter adhere is if you pre-coat your meat in starch or flower of some kind I

Think cornstarch makes the most sense just because it has a great ability to get things to adhere definitely a thicker batter is it too thick I don’t know we lost the sort of shagginess there I just feel like the thicker batter is taking longer to get crispy and to Brown

And that sucks that’s not where we want to be so as I feared you know the skin did not get crispy under that thicker shell that cornstarch on the chicken as well I gotta say like it just forms like a little bit of like a gummy coating suddenly like everything about this

Feels wrong it kind of reminds Jesus that can hold any glaze or sauce maybe you want a little more dry component kind of like packed in but the chicken I must it’s very juicy and it’s seasoned very well how are you envisioning this Fried Chicken Sandwich visually

Part of me wants it to feel textural enough that you could soak it in a very tight glaze like you do sometimes with like a Korean Fried Chicken you just have to be careful that it won’t take away whatever crisp and crust that you’re working so

Hard to achieve so it might literally be like a brush on top rather than like a soak or a dip you know listen I’m not where I want to be and like and that’s okay for the next version I want to stick with a lighter batter I’m going

With a higher proportion of AP flour go up to a third of a cup water plus a half cup vodka one of these is gonna have cornstarch other no cornstarch I love how we have a coating that’s following the natural shape of the chicken we made relatively minimal

Differences here but we went from this to this that’s a huge difference visually I think we’re in a much better place the version without the cornstarch seems to absorb a little bit more of the oil underneath be a little bit greasier flavor is good I mean it’s very nicely

Seasoned it’s almost right on the edge of being over seasoned the batter is very light and crisp I mean it really is so crispy but it’s a different expression of crispiness than I fear than like what most people are gonna want when they hear the crispiest chicken let’s see how the version with

Cornstarch did it’s very very good I’m loving the coating I’m loving the ratio of sort of the exterior total amount of batter to chicken I’ve got just enough of everything to kind of do one more pass here I want to just get a full piece of chicken in so that we can at

Least experiment with like a couple of quick finishers tonight I’m taking the skin off of this because I just have a feeling like honestly like calling for boneless skinless you can buy this it’s ready to go I’m curious to see what the difference is frankly without it I want

Just like a little finisher for the chicken see if I can make a glaze that can be brushed over Kenji in his recipe sort of laid out two sort of possible versions thought were really compelling one is sort of like a finishing glaze that’s more sweet and spicy like let’s

Gochujang based another was more of like a sweeter version with soy sauce I really want to see if we can kind of bring this to a very full-on spicy deep Place flavor-wise gonna do cornstarch treatment so the glaze I want to pull it down until it’s it’s pretty tight so a very

Small amount will really coat the chicken and deliver like a huge flavor upgrade really loving the shagginess of this batter what’s interesting to me is just like it’s texture on fried chicken that’s just presenting in a really new way the increased proportion of AP flour increased proportion of vodka had real

Benefit I want to set one of these up as a sandwich just to see where we get with that I’m liking the cross section here the flavors are great you know the gochujang just really brings so much intensity that glaze is working really hard for me the crunch Isn’t So

Pronounced which is good and bad hi hi look at this guy it is recalling a Nashville Hot Chicken Vibe there’s a lot going on yeah but very flavorful definite Improvement on the crust from the previous version I would say it’s currently in this state it’s a juicy glazy Fried Chicken Sandwich okay

Positives of the sandwich are that first of all really great flavor two it’s fast you can go from you know pulling raw chicken out of the fridge to eating the sandwich in under an hour that’s really really different from most other Fried Chicken preparations full stop overall

Really good first day a little bit more to go I woke up early and I was tossing and turning and I was just thinking about the fact that it feels like even though it’s not a lot of effort creating this batter that is getting us to this wonderful Shaggy craggy place is that

Creating the best possible chicken experience for the application of a sandwich I I suddenly had the thought like what if instead of making a batter if we were to consider a dry dredge for our final step pre-fry what if the Vodka was the wash what would that mean that’s kind of what I

Want to explore new day new me same chicken let’s go the dry rub is going to remain unchanged a seasoned dry dredge today rather than a batter but with the caveat that I’m using vodka as the wash instead of cornstarch I’m going to try potato starch My Hope Is that the potato

Starch will get even crispier than the cornstarch did double down on my seasonings and then I’m gonna do sesame seeds sesame seeds are gonna bring crunch as well as flavor I’m making the gochujang glaze mostly the same as yesterday I’m also going to add some toasted sesame oil just to double down

On some Sesame flavor today I’m going back to skin on boneless version just to see if I can get that skin really crisp within the dry coating so we’re going to do that technique of pressing the chicken into the starch before it goes into to the Vodka wash

Feels a little crazy does it seem crazy because it feels a little crazy on this side this is fun I think the Vodka wash might have just taken that potato starch right off but I don’t know maybe maybe we had some clingage so here is our chicken we just fried

It’s not quite as like crunchy crispy as I was expecting slash hoping it to be but there’s a delicateness to the crispiness and there’s a really great sensation of having these kind of craggy bits adhering to the chicken I’m barely getting the sesame seeds I’m certainly

Not mad that they’re there and I think you know that plus the toasted sesame and the glaze is going to be pretty interesting so I’m gonna do two pieces this time mainly just because I want to see if a bigger piece is able to just fry longer and get crispier still I’m

Not gonna do the potato starch pre-coating before doing the wash this time I don’t think it’s staying on in enough quantity to make it worthwhile oh yeah punching up the seasoning really made a difference I kind of dig the fact that it’s like a little bit KFC but with

Something else going on so the bigger one went an extra minute and it’s holding up nicely but we lost some adhesion chicken to dredge there the chicken wants to kind of shrink bind up I mean flavor is great the glaze is like bright it’s sweet it’s hot but it

Invites another bite it’s just really warm lovely balance glaze is good to go I just want to push the texture of the chicken a little bit further so this time we’re going to do thigh and breast so I’m gonna do an egg it could be part of what really helps bind chicken and

Dredge ultimately it’s the dredge that’s getting crispy right so the more you can get on there the crispier the sensation you’re gonna get I’m also just really curious about what happens when alcohol and egg comes into contact with each other is it gonna like cook it over time

Or is it gonna be all right I don’t know I have boneless skinless chicken breast so I got inspired by this technique that I saw um from David shim where he takes a short rib and he scores it very deeply as a way of increasing the surface area

To absorb a marinade and it got me thinking about how could you take a chicken breast and kind of do the same thing and kind of open it up so that you get more surface area to get better coating of your dry rub so I’m going to

Season both of these so the egg is going to want to bind to the starch and then the flour is going to want to bind to the egg and away we so go We got good crisp on both the egg is grabbing incrementally more of both the potato starch that is on the chicken itself and on the dredge which is ultimately on top of it for all the things happening here the drama of all the interventions we did to kind of get

To this point I don’t think are being validated by a superior chicken experience I’m primed to prefer the boneless skinless chicken thigh just because I think it is by far the easiest option this is the crispiness I want in a piece of chicken especially if it’s

Going into a sandwich and going to get coated with a sauce this is our one boneless skinless chicken thigh good adhesion great flavor just a little bit more bite to that dredge it’s Fried Chicken as you know it but with a Twist I’m feeling really positive about this

Direction compared to yesterday this is more foolproof and frankly it’s cooked up crispier and it’s more delicious so here we are I really appreciate how seasoned this chicken is just like it’s very delicious on its own I feel like glaze it’s a little I don’t know that I

Want toasted sesame no well it’s kind of Bringing Down the flavor where it’s like bright and spicy I want a little sweetness I am wondering like how to sort of finish things off it can be as simple as a punched up Mayo swipe or maybe it’s like a yogurt I don’t know

Yeah I’m still thinking through that one yeah now that I feel pretty good about the chicken treatment and about the glaze I’m gonna get the chicken set up in the dry rub and let it sit for about 20 minutes just so it can absorb a little bit more flavor same judge as

Last time I’m using proportionately less vodka just as a way to thin the egg out so it doesn’t form a puffy bready coating glaze I am gonna try taking out the toasted sesame oil Hannah really didn’t seem to be a big fan of it while that’s resting I’m gonna work on my

Other condiment and I’m thinking I want ultimate Simplicity here what if it’s as simple as mixing some mayonnaise with the bread and butter pickle brine so it’s sweet little Tangy but not thinning it out to the point that it’s going to want to get super runny

And it’s just not quite giving me the sharpness that I want because I’ve already used rice vinegar once in the recipe I’m going to try that next I also think some of the dill in there could be really fun I like that just Punchy enough but it’s

Creamy feel good first we’re going into the potato starch the egg wash dredge I’ve been taking a quiet gauge on the timing of The Frying process and we’re kind of netting out around six minutes I mean right off the bat there is color there is crunch I’m loving the sesame

Seeds on there yet again I you know I just feel very gratified by the fact that we chose a simpler approach that also managed to feel better for the application we were putting this food through done overall look screams Fried Chicken Sandwich something crispy something Saucy something crunchy and it’s on two

Pieces of bread all right Hannah it looks beautiful I would pay money for this I think the flavor is very good but chicken is so juicy I’m so happy with that is it just Mayo is it flavored Mayo with a little bit of the rice Vin and Dill oh

My God I’m like what is that I thought it was just extra fragrant pickles come on the dill is really coming through the bite overall feels very balanced in terms of fresh elements cooling elements a little bit of heat but not really that much and I think whoever is looking for

A fried chicken sandwich whether it’s something closer to like a classic style or something more adventurous like they will be happy with this I really like this and honestly the fact that we were able to do this in an hour I’m really like I’m just in such a different place

Than I was yesterday I feel like we ended up in a great spot it’s very rarely a waste of time to go through the exercise of trying multiple versions of something that just adds to your bank of knowledge of how certain ingredients and techniques are going to interact and pay

Off in one way or the other and that’s like the real value it’s being able to say hey I tried all these different versions and this one really represents like the best possible payoff you can find the recipe in the description below I hope you make it let me know how it goes

Do you know about my other million dollar idea that’s got the ridges on the inside and out that’s good rigatissimo we could go somewhere with this