Tortured Soul Crowd Favorites Ep.4: Harold’s Chicken No. Sixty-Nine – Chicago

Crowd Favorites!

Chefs in cities around the world teach John Christian Urich, Randy Emata, and the band to make local dishes on their days off.

“Having played in multiple establishments numerous times for over two decades in Chicago, Tortured Soul’s relationship with “the birthplace of house music” runs deep. Perhaps as deep as deep house, and possibly even deeper than a deep dish pizza… which was, incidentally, what I imagined we might get to feature on a “Crowd Favorites” episode. It turns out, though, we did it one better!

I gave a shout-out on our socials, asking who might host us in their kitchen and show us how to do it right, Chicago style, hoping for the best. And guess what? We hit the jackpot! Chef Gina Worthy invited us to come get into it at Harold’s Chicken #69, the quintessential Chicago fried chicken establishment, where there’s no such thing as too much mild sauce. She took us on an unforgettable journey from A to Z, to C for chicken, G for gizzards, and P for pizza puffs… and beyond. This was a fun one. Check it out!” – JCU

About Crowd Favorites:
Tortured Soul is a genre-defying collective that has redefined the boundaries of house music, blending live instrumentation with the soulful, deep grooves that have made them a global sensation.

They also really like to cook.
Cook food that is.
And while on tour, they occasionally have a day off.

So it occurred to front man singer/drummer, John Christian Urich that if he wasn’t already lucky enough to be playing music at so many cool places around the world, that he also had an incredible opportunity to experience the cultures even more deeply by asking local chefs to teach him and Randy to make some regional dishes in the cities where they play.

Randy Emata, keyboard player for Tortured Soul, agreed that it would be worth it to lose a couple more hours of sleep to find the time to get into local kitchens and learn to make recipes. That is dedication!

But remember, they get to eat the food they make with the chefs, so it’s 100% worth it!

Follow Harold’s Chicken!
https://haroldschicken69.com/
https://www.instagram.com/haroldschickencorp/

Watch Episode 3 here! https://youtu.be/Hbo2rbSuyUo
Subscribe! https://youtube.com/@torturedsoulmusic?sub_confirmation=1

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Created by John Christian Urich and Randy Emata
Produced by John Christian Urich
Lyrics by John Christian Urich
Music by John Christian Urich, Randy Emata, and Brandon Chapman

#TorturedSoul #CrowdFavorites #Chicago #HaroldsChicken #Chicken

Hey Randy, hurry up with those gizzards. Shut up. Hey, what’s up everybody? This is John Christian Yur Randy Amada and today with us we got our guitarist Brandon Chapman. Hey, we’re here for this episode of Crowd Favorites and we’re here on the south side of Chicago. We’ve been invited by Chef Gina Worthy to uh come and make some food at this location of Harold’s Chicken. It’s an iconic uh establishment here in Chicago. Let’s go uh say hello to Gina. Hi guys. Waiting for you. Come on in. Nice to see you. Absolutely. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. All right. How was the show last night? [Music] Perfect. Come on in. Harold’s Chicken is a staple here in the city of Chicago. Um we also are have locations independently owned. that is we’re in Atlanta, the Carolinas, Texas, Hollywood. Okay. Oh, yeah. There’s there’s quite a few of them. So, Mr. Pierce is the founder of um Chicago’s Famous Heroes Chicken. Um he’s a pioneer in this industry. Uh he’s no longer with us, but I still carry on that tradition as his his daughter Kristen Pierce and her family has trained myself and my staff the technique of frying genuine Harold’s chicken and the coveted mild sauce. Ah, nice. Uh, so what what are you going to have us uh work on today? What what are we going to Well, it kind of depends. So, if you’ve seen the menu, it’s chicken chicken, but we also have fish. Um, we have pizza puffs. I don’t know if you if you ever had a pizza puff. So, I want you guys to try some things that are um a staple to the city of Chicago. So, we’re going to fry up some wings. We’re also going to uh fry up some um gizzards, which are known as the poor man’s filt minions. You guys ready to come on back? Let’s go. You want the highlight? [Music] All right. All right. I have Okay. All right. Thank you. We got some uh apron. Aprons here. Nice. Ready. You ready for the chicken? I’m ready. I’m ready to do it. Yeah, man. Let’s go. Look at that. You are clean. Yes. This is my prep area. This is actually the fryer that I uh use for the tomatoes. Three dedicated fryers for chicken, one for seafood. I have a different bowl, if you will, for shrimp. I don’t combine uh shrimp with fish and I have a separate fryer for the French fries. Is the oil like ratio as a secret? Yeah, it come it comes back up. This is what the cube look like. You can’t bite it, so I don’t have a problem with showing it to you. Okay. I mean, I’m not asking you to reveal any secrets, but I’m just curious like what oil and oil. As always, first uh rule of thumb, got to wash our hands. Our [Music] fryers are at 325. Uh 325. Yeah. Okay. Um we we fry on low heat. Um this is our flour. Fresh every day. Um fresh. No seasoning in the flour. All of our chicken after it’s received, I wash, I clean, I pluck feathers, I rinse, I season. So, tell me about plucking the chicken feathers. You have to clean it. Sometimes there’s um feathers still left intact, which I I pull all the feathers out because there’s nothing worse than getting chicken feather still left on it. So, I’m very particular, you know, about that. Clean it, pluck it, the whole nine. It’s left to marinate for at least 24 hours. Should I put Should I put on Put your gloves on. Two gloves. All right. I’d like to do some frying. Okay. Since John’s doing the frying. Yeah. Who’s going to um be my dropper? The dropper is is responsible for grabbing the chicken from out of the cooler. I will be the I’ll help you. How many pieces are we making? We got an order. How many wings you want? Four. How many wings you want? Four. Four. Okay. Yeah. How many wings you want? Four. How many wings you want? Four. All right. Let’s get 16 wings. This is all of our chicken. Everything is fresh. Um, everything is dated. So, uh, today is Saturday. This chicken I received and cleaned and seasoned on yesterday. Okay. So I This will be gone by tonight. A little mix. Grab you 16 wings. All right. No problem. There be no basketball. No problem. It’s okay to count by twos or threes. Drop it like All right. Now you have your 16. The key to this is don’t let it don’t put it in and just let it sit. That’s not what we want to do. I like to just give it a swirl, a shake, throw it in. [Music] If this music thing doesn’t work out, you always got a job here, buddy. Always got a job there. probably make more money. [Music] And that oil is clean. It’s it’s basically it’s what we call seasoned. It’s been fried. So, I change my oil every other day. So, what are we doing here? You’re making sure that the flour has completely coated the chicken. Because we’re dealing with wings, you want to make sure that it’s in the creases. Okay. Then after you shake it, yeah, you throw it in the basket cuz we got a lot of shaking to do. After he gets everything in the basket, we’re going to shake it again. This is how we preserve our fryer. It’s less product in the bottom of your fryer. Gotcha. So you won’t incorporate that burnt taste. Shake it. Don’t break it. Shake, baby. Shake. You good to go? I think so. They’re all Yep. They’re all in. All right. With your other hand. All right. I took over your job there. It’s all good, man. Like a Polaroid picture. All right. All right. Now, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. Right over the basket. Come on, man. Listen, man. I’m about to I’m new here. It’s my first day. Hercules. Elbow grease in there. All right. I think we’re good. Okay. All right. All right. Now, we’re going to carry this over to the fryer. Oh, yeah. Now, put your chicken on in, friend. All right. Now, see how there’s not a lot of drop in there? Yes. Put your basket in. All right. Go ahead, Chap. You got it. You got it. You’re going to start your timer. We’re on timer one. Enter. Cuz we dropped 16 wings. Uhhuh. We don’t want it to stick together. So, after it fries a couple minutes, we just want to keep it moving. Keep it moving. Is it the same process for these? Cuz we No, you’re just going to take your fries, take a good grip. We got four orders. You can kind of eyeball it. You know, that should be enough for you guys on TV. So, fries, shrimp, this is fish, and chicken. You guys are going to fry catfish. You guys fish. Yes. Who’s going to do You can do the fish. Can I shake that one time? You can shake it out however many times you want to. Shake, baby. Shake. Shake it. More than I You’re playing with it. Five, four, three, two, one. Happy chicken. Stop. No. Doing No, I just need to stop that baby from crying. There you go. Hey, that baby is still crying. Uh-oh. So, why did we switch it from this one to this one? Like, why don’t we just keep it? Well, it it allows me to produce more orders. So, as we rotate them through the oil, as orders come in, I’m dropping a fresh batch every 7 minutes. And these are 100 lb fried, so it requires 100 lb of oil. So, this goes down to what? Before we drop French fries, four. Drop the fries. Drop the fries. Hot brown. All right. All right. Now, what about these uh pizza pockets? Pizza puffs. Puffs. Sorry. Pizza puffs. We can drop those, too. [Music] Once everything comes up, I’m going to show you how we plate and then you guys can take turns plating and stuffing the bag. Uh, so essentially like I I I get the technique so we can you can let it cook more. But it’s it cooks for 14 minutes at 325. Yes. I’m getting you your boats ready. You get your order. You just grab your boat. You know, you can line it up however you want to do it. How long you let it strain for our drip? At least a minute. 5 4 3 2 1 go. All right. Here we go. Get on the job. Come on. Come on. Don’t play with it. The easy way. When you pull it up, once you have it here, just do that. Technique. Technique. The trade. Uh-oh. Same thing with the prawn. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. See, just just go straight up with it. Your baby’s crying. Uh-oh. A little a little close to home right now for Chap. He’s got He’s got a You got a newborn? He’s got a 9month-old. Oh, nice. Yes, I do. Homemade colelaw. I make the coleslaw myself every day. You got to have a hot pepper. You got to have the jalapeno pepper. You do the first one and then we’ll copy you. But, you know, presentation is everything. [Music] I’m a little anal. It’s important that all the French fries go in the same direction. And this is how you would give it to me. Once I get it, I’ll look at it. I’ll inspect it. I’ll adjust the French fries yet again. Make sure, okay, if I have a ticket for four wings, I got four wings. They look great to me. Chicago folks like mild sauce. [Music] Hey Oh, it’s a lot of sauce. Pepper, bread on top. And this is the the most important part. You got to know how to stuff this bag the right way. So, it goes in coleslaw. Make sure the top is on. Top of the paper. Napkins, fork in the bag. They want a jalapeno pepper. I have a small, you know, plastic bag. [Music] Oh, that crease. That’s my That’s it. That’s it. That’s it. Light work. All right. Oh, I still got eye on it. Okay. Stop producing. Where we at? Only producing. Yeah. One is up. So, it’s four, right? Okay. I’m going to move these over a little bit. Right. So, [Music] and remember, this is cooked food, so you can grab it with your glove. You’re not handling anything wrong. All right. One time on the way. All right. Going to drop it. Randy, get over there, man. Yeah. Go do the mouth size, man. Okay. Hot sauce, ketchup, salt, and pepper. Good. These are clean. I just keep extras. You can move that out the way. Don’t be afraid of it. Yeah. That looks good. This fries all messy. All nice even. You’re like, I’m getting it in there. No, you’re not. No. [Music] How much lemon pepper? Huh? [Music] Cover it up. Uhhuh. All the way. There you go. [Music] All right. Now for the [Music] There you go. Feel the bottom of that. Yep. Now just tuck. You need a tuck and roll. Why is my paper not sideways? All right. So, what’s the traditional way of doing? Do you wrap stuff in bread or whatever you want to do with it? Spray for the Look at John. John is a Wow. Oh, smoke. You got to be kidding me. Told you guys. Told you. Pull that wing apart the right way, please. That’s almost like You ready? Yeah. I’m going to have this bite of this pizza puff here in Chicago. Do it. It’s delicious. I think tasting [Music] sauce. [Music] All right. One, two, three. [Music] That’s a lady of a trample. Hey Randy, how we looking on the fish? fish, I think. But I need instructions first. We have Yeah. They said they want to scream at you. You can grab my gizzards anytime. All right. Okay. So, pick each piece up. Shake the water off a little bit. Okay. Fresh catfish fillets. I’m going to dab it in there. Both sides. Yeah. Yep. All three. Boom. Get in. Get it. Time is money. Time is money. I just realized I forgot your face instructions. All right, cool. Prior number four. And just straight over. Straight over. Straight over. Go like this at an angle. Yeah. 45°. Yeah. Oops. That one’s kind of touching. That’s all right. You’re fine. All right. Let’s drop. Drop. And then bam. Get in there. It’s a clock. Clock. This timer one. Boom. Two. Okay. Both on. Perfect. Cool. Perfect. So, while that’s cooking, we’re going to do this in there like that. And then same process. Dazzle. That’s how you want. I don’t I don’t know how to be. You didn’t tell me. Just kidding. It’s okay that I’m yelling. I want to scare you. Absolutely. Have a great time. Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. Here we go. Oh. Uh-oh. I lost one. It’s clean. Oh, ready. Come on. Hot bro. Where am I going? First basket. Right here. First basket. Huh? Toss them in. Toss them in. Two. How many minutes, Randy? Uh, 10. [Music] Liver. Mhm. Your liver. Cook for 4 minutes. This is the only product that does not go into the liquid because there’s already moisture. Gotcha. can do. And again, see, I have I’m only using one. Now, is that is that just pure flour or is there salt in there? Straight up. Straight flour. And the reason for that is because everything here, all of our products are seasoned. So, you don’t need So, if I was to season the flour, there’s a possibility of overs salted that these catfish are just about done. 10 seconds. Okay, cool. Careful. Oh, okay. Yeah. Nice. Even in Look at that. That looks good. Uh-huh. I’m an artist. I love to see. [Music] Awesome. Now, this is the liver. This is the liver. Yeah. I’m going to do that. Hey, deliver the liver. [Music] I don’t think I should eat for another two weeks. Goodbye. No way. Mhm. All right. Gizzards shot. Wait, that’s the liver. Liver milk. [Music] Okay. Mhm. Chicken. Her old chicken [Music] [Music] on the south side of I go chicken. [Music] Hey. Hey. [Music] [Music] Get to get her with her. Hey, you got to get [Music] store 69 turn into a night. Yep. Exactly. Thank you guys so much for supporting me and my business is showcasing us. As a little token, I have my sauce to go home with each of you. It’s a staple to Chicago. Um it’s not sold in stores, so you’re getting a genuine bottle from a genuine Harold franchise. Enjoy. Hey, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hold chicken. Harold’s chicken. [Music] Number 69. 69. 69.