On Sep 6, 10:30*pm, " > wrote:
> Jarrett Wrisley has an interesting story and an intriguing recipe for
> the delicious fried chicken available on Bangkok streets he
> http://food.theatlantic.com/abroad/b...-fried-chicken...
I made this last night, and for anyone interested, here are my notes/
thoughts on it...
* Coriander root required probably referrs to roots from the young
(cilantro) plant. I spent a lot of time trying to cut up, then pound
the roots from a plant that had gone to coriander seed - they were
just about impossible. Cutting was hard to do. Pounding was
ineffective. So after quite a bit of trying, I dumped the whole thing
into my old vita-mix, set it on high, and reversed the impeller
occationally while it worked for around 5 minutes. Nothing should be
able to survive such treatment, and it didn't. Next time I will use
either just stems or young roots and pound. An unfortunate side effect
of using the vita-mix in that fashion is that friction heats it up,
and it was pretty hot after 5 minutes. Not boiling, but maybe 150F or
so.
* Cilantro stems - these are pretty tiny things - it calls for just 10
of them. The stems are only about 1/8th inch in diameter and run only
about 6 inches long. I threw in a couple more stems for good measure.
* I don't have any "real" red pepper powder, so I substitued 2 small
dried chilis, whole, with the stems removed.
* I could not find "rice flour" in the store - they were out. So I
purchased "brown rice flour". Only after I finished did I realize I
could have ground my own in the vita-mix. But using the brown rice
flour seems to have not been an issue.
* After putting all the ingredients together, I found it was too stiff
to be used as a marinade or be considered "a smooth wet batter" so I
added more chicken stock until it was about pancake batter
consistency.
* I used chicken breasts (cut in 3 pieces), thighs, and legs.
* I marinated for about 24 hours
* After marinating, I dusted with a bit more of rice flour.
The results we
* Tasted pretty darned good. However, the garlic was way out of
proportion with everything else. I love garlic, but 14 cloves is too
much. Every once in a while you could taste beyond the garlic and get
the cilantro root and stems and other ingredients - and that was very
good. Next time I'll try using about 7 cloves.
* The kids loved it (not too spicy) and my wife liked it (the garlic
was overpowering).
* I'll definately continue to modify this recipe more in the future.
* The reason they say to cook "past golden brown" is because you
really need that time to get the parts cooked all the way through. I
fried them to this point in batches, then took out. Then I re-fried
them all for a minute or two hoping to ensure they were completely
cooked. The results were that they were barely cooked enough. Maybe a
little too jucy for comfort with some people, but no blood. Very close
- slightly under - that fine line of undercooked/perfect.
Of topic a little - I finally setup to deep-fry outside on a propane
burner. Wow is that an improvement over frying in the house. No smell
in the house, lots of BTUs, easy clean up. I may never deep fry in the
house again. I also deep fried some biscuits (the uncooked kind you
get in a tube in the refridgerator section of the grocery store) -
those came out pretty cool. I also deep fried some banannas - those
were good too.
Thanks for the recipie link!
-Jeff