Chris Makes Spicy Chicken Katsu Sandwiches | From the Test Kitchen | Bon Appétit

Holy to Blender, she knows how much I love sweet pastries, you know, in the afternoon and she just holds them back and I'm like they're sitting there getting stale, getting staler, anyway, this could be called anything. . called hot

chicken

katsu

this could be Acme Andals are falling from the sky this could be called what else did we say? I mean, I think we can definitely call it amazing, basically just taking the idea of ​​

katsu

and specifically in this case

chicken

and just bringing in a whole other level of spiciness and kind of spice. Panko is like a sponge and you can't just dip it in vinegar, you know, like a batter and keep it crispy, so we add spices in a little bit.

In other ways, specifically in the flour dredge, we have a ridiculous amount of cayenne, which I honestly like, although there is a ridiculous amount, there's like three tablespoons per half a cup of flour, although that sounds scary, honestly, you only get one limited quantity, you know when. you actually dredge the chicken in it, it's great, everything will be fine. We've put a little vinegar-based hot sauce into the beaten egg, so again you get a different dimension of heat coming from that. You have many things like that. the brightness of the vinegar mixes with the egg and finally we put some extra hot sauce on it with our little remoulade here, which is nothing more than bread and butter, pickles, mayonnaise and then that hot sauce and salt, so yeah, ready.

I'm just going to chop these pickles up, I definitely want to drain them well because I don't want this to get too loose because we already have our liquid hot sauce in there, finally it's going to dice them up so they just kind of disappear into the bread and butter pickles. I don't know if I'm a bread and butter pickle guy and I don't love sweetness in places where I don't necessarily expect it, but there's something about that kind of snappy texture and that little bit of sweetness to balance out the saltiness that gets me every time.

I use Krystal hot sauce because it's incredibly delicious, it has an amazing color and I find that it's like it has a great balance, you know, it's just got that hot, it's not too

spicy

or too vinegary, a pinch of salt, this will do for our final little trick, so okay, now we just have to prepare our chicken cutlets, you can use chicken breasts and as I tried with chicken breasts, several times the sleeper cut that you know for katsu. I feel like boneless, skinless chicken thigh is an absolutely epic katsu just because it has a lot of similar richness and a beautiful kind of fattiness to it, but you can still render it. like some, you know, just a little bit of that residual surface fat, I'm still going to hit them very lightly, like it's not the end of the world if you don't, I mean, I think can we say like half an inch, you know, Even if you lose weight, even if you get to a quarter of an inch, they'll tighten up as they cook, so they'll taste like they're back, so basically it's absolutely useless, don?

I don't, I mean, honestly, I make chicken katsu for my kids almost every week and I just keep the chops in the fridge and then we heat them up, you know, so they can have them for dinner as 2 or whatever in the Funny thing about week was that when I was developing this, everyone wanted it to be spicier and spicier. I didn't start with hot sauce on that little Jersey condiment. You know, everyone was like, oh, I want it to be so

spicy

like it'll break your face. like hot chicken, this is our flour dredge and this is the amount of cayenne pepper that I'm putting in it.

It seems crazy, it just seems wrong, but trust me, it's half a cup of flour and maybe 2 to 3 tablespoons. ends up coating the chicken, you really need the chicken to move freely in the dredge so cayenne pepper, garlic powder essential, honestly this adds a lot of umami and a lot of flavor and it's very stealthy because it doesn't really taste like raw. garlic, it can just add a ton of depth to things and then salt. I'm going to mix this well, then the egg washes well, so I have a quarter cup of hot sauce in there.

I got my egg right so hot sauce on egg so this is like heat source number two so we had the Chi in there and then we put the hot sauce on our beaten egg. I didn't put any heat into the panko. Because that's enough, so let's season this chicken. This is what I mean, you just need a certain amount of flour mm-hmm just to be able to move around and coat it generously. I know it's a lot. of cayenne, then we're going to wash the eggs here, just flipping them a couple of times just to make sure they're completely coated, that looks really fun, we're just going to flip them a couple of times just to make sure they're super well coated and that it's a good chance. with that right in the panko and it's so dark red that I'm making a huge mess here too, great, I feel so good about this if this doesn't give us a cinnamon bun, I don't know what will be good.

I have to wait for this to warm up a little. You don't need a very hot pan. You know it's not like you're searing a steak. You know breadcrumbs want to be crispy, they want to brown, so medium medium high. as maximum heat here, I'm using olive oil for this just because it's the oil I cook with at home, so that panko is going to absorb a lot of oil, not to the point where it's greasy, but at the end of the day you're I'm going to try that oil, you know? So why not let it have some flavor?

I don't want it to smoke too much, but it just needs to go in. I just want to hear it. I think I could do these two for two. I just don't want to. to fill this pan here, did anyone hear that? Did you hear it's not like that, but there was sound, there was action, so I'm going to cook these two at the same time. I just don't want to crowd the pan and we're not in a hurry because they probably ate all the cinnamon buns anyway, so we can take our time here, enjoy the process, so this guy looks ready to flip, that's what I mean, just like with a regular katsu. like ooh, maybe it got a little too dark, but honestly, it's the kind of spice that's toasted in there, it's not really that the panko is getting too brown, don't worry, it has a good amount more fat and richness of connective tissue than a chicken breast, okay?

Hear the door slam around everything in there is plastic so it's probably not good. How is it frozen? You don't have to change the oil, like if you have some chunks, you know by the second round if you need to split it up. in two batches, you know you might get some dark spots right where some of the panko that's left there has been hanging out, it's not the end of the world, so we're doing the exact same thing with these last two chops and then we're going to get started to make our

sandwiches

cold, so spicy, so crunchy.

Oh, and one thing I definitely wanted to point out is that the resting rack on the baking sheet is essential because it really helps preserve the texture of that crispy panko. and it

makes

all the difference, so don't skimp, you know, this is dark for a regular katsu and not too dark for this katsu. I'm using iceberg for maximum shrinkage. I'm going to take like any of the outer leaves that are just It's not crunchy enough, I just haven't made the cut, they're gone, honestly, iceberg, not my favorite lettuce, but damn, that crunch, you know, there's no nothing like it, it's also super easy to shred and it just adds like that a little bit of like something textural, the sandwich is all about the chicken, you know, and if you can find it, like find a great white Pullman bread or in this case, like we went to this amazing local Takahashi bakery that

makes

milk bread that is simply to die for.

Soft with a large edge of crust all around. This stuff is absolutely dynamite and smells amazing. Do you want to enter here? Chicken, shredded lettuce sauce, it's that, it's, it's, it's, that's right, it's beautiful, it will spread on the generous, but not too much. quantity both sides of the bread and I'm going to get a couple of these guys here you can smell Chris's penis a little bunch of ettus trademark term sure like Carla Lally music that's cool well this is the winner Obviously, so at least don't do it. I don't have to like sit there and agonize like what is it oh I don't know like obviously that's it, okay, we're doing this together, okay, that's it, let me see that, that's a pretty special bread, yeah, it's. the conversation takes a minute, the side of your tongue and then boom boom, there it is, I love it if you like it, amazing, I like it, I don't think it's a punishment, but it's there, my life open your mouth as if waking up.

It rises a little bit, that's really good, the bread is like I know, yeah, those are great too, again, like the sweetness. You know, my nose is getting it. I can even have more lettuce there. Thank you very much everyone for coming. Kaien is the only one. way to heat cayenne unless the crystal is in the wash and the crystal is also in the dressing. I have to say I feel like it might be even harder, well I want like I'm taking my third bite, I might, it's hot, you're getting even. spicier, so yeah, whatever you want to call it, it's like a really spectacular sandwich that you don't need like special milk bread or anything else, just get something like soft and fluffy, a King's Hawaiian bun like Eliza said, that would be absolutely epic and if. the mouse is there to say these are really good this is the brioche David give me this oh yeah okay I've actually done it we haven't heard any of those five backgrounds.

I don't want to eat so much bread, but I would eat all of this and get another one for Carnegie Hall. It's that amazing.