- 3 months ago
Bon Appétit joins Chef Jassimran Singh, Executive Chef at Michelin Star restaurant Crown Shy, to make their signature grilled chicken. Perfected by the late Chef Jamal James Kent, Crown Shy’s grilled chicken is their number one dish–so popular that guests make reservations just to enjoy it.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I'm Jasimun Singh. I'm the executive chef of Crown Chai. Today we will be doing the best roast
00:09chicken. It's our number one dish to be honest. People actually come to Crown Chai for this chicken.
00:19Crown Chai is a neighborhood restaurant we opened in 2019. We didn't want it to feel like it's so
00:24high-end. So the first thing we wanted to work is citrus marinated and habanero brined chicken,
00:29which is really really delicious, spicy, tangy, and connects with people. A key marker for a roast
00:35chicken is the perfect crispy skin and a real moist meat. It is hard to achieve but it's not not
00:40possible and you can definitely do it at home. Let me show you how.
00:46Here's the chicken which is a Hassan Bali chicken. It's a 40-day-old chicken and it's about like three
00:51and a half pounds. We get it with a head and a feet on. We keep the feet on for presentation.
00:56So when we get your whole chicken, we can use the other bones to make chicken stock and the chicken
01:00jus that turns into like our sauce for the chicken. So we wanted to use the whole animal. I'm just gonna
01:05like go through the through the head. We don't do anything with that. The smaller part of arm this
01:10goes for the chicken jus and then we flip the chicken upside down and make the cut here at the
01:16back just trying to save all the skin, right? That's like the most important thing. If you have
01:21a tear when you cook it because the chicken will expand it will just rupture the whole thing and
01:24you try to keep as much skin as possible because that will help us later keep the chicken the skin
01:29crispy. We keep the breast bones intact to protect it from getting dry because it's a more leaner muscle.
01:35So that's like a cushion for us. And from now we'll just cut the chicken in half. You split it in half
01:41but like you got to be careful with the skin. You're just making a perfect incision. So when you flip the
01:45chicken the skin is fully fully intact. So when you cook it obviously it's going to shrink
01:50but now we have an extra piece of skin. It will come back perfectly right around the edge of the
01:55chicken breast and the legs. I'm deboning the the thigh meat and then the legs. Thighs and the legs
02:00have more fat. They need longer cooking time than the breasts. So just to even out the process we need
02:05to have no bones in the thigh and the leg. You gotta feel where the bones are and then you just like
02:10scrape a little bit so you can see actual physical bone. And then from there you can just slide your knife
02:18around it to clear it out. Obviously it will be really hard for people at home. This is like not
02:23the most easiest process but it's a little tedious because we want to keep the foot intact. And that's
02:28your half chicken breast, bones intact, debone thigh, debone leg. So these chickens are broken down and
02:34ready to marinate. So we're going to marinate it for like 24 hours. So this marinade is basically a citrus
02:41brine which is made of citrus juice. We're just blending it all together then putting in a lexan and then putting
02:47chickens in it. We're going to go in batches. Marinating chicken is really important. If you
02:51want to put any seasoning into it you have to marinate chicken and you have to give it at least
02:55six hours and make sure like your marinade or your brine is actually a little aggressively seasoned
03:01because it's not going to translate 100%. So now once we have the liquid you can start throwing your
03:06salt in there. People often like scared that they're going to over season their chicken with salt. I think
03:11people need to understand it takes a lot of salt to over season the chicken. It also helps break down the
03:15chicken a little more. And when you cook a chicken at home sometimes the chicken is dry. By marinating
03:19you can also avoid that. We're going to do another round. If you're doing it at home try to do it in
03:23a batch. It just like breaks down the chilies really well. We blend it completely because we want as
03:30spicy as it could be. The more seeds are blended the more spicier they are. And now we're going to add
03:35all our juices into it. Grapefruit juice, lemon juice, lime juice, ginger juice. Mix the salt, mix all the juices
03:41together. So our marinade's ready and we're going to just transfer our chickens into it. And it's going
03:46to live here in the marinade for 24 hours. Anything past that because it has a lot of acid in it it start
03:51cooking the chicken. You label this. So there are chicken out of the marinade. Chickens are marinating
03:59and there's a marinade for other chickens to come in. So we're going to just wash these chickens out of
04:03the marinade now. So I have some chickens over here which are marinated yesterday or 24 hours ago. We're
04:09going to just rinse them and we're going to take them upstairs with us. You can keep the marinade
04:12on. For us we need to take it off because it will eventually start burning. The spices will burn,
04:18the chili will burn before like chicken will be cooked. So that's why we wash it off. And then from
04:22there we dry it for like a couple of hours. We want the skin to be dry because if there's any moisture
04:27it won't get that crispy. Pat dry the skin. We also only rinse the skin so like in the other part you can
04:33see the chilies and everything is still in there. From here we're going to transfer back into the walk-in.
04:39And let it dry for four hours.
04:46So we're going to make the citrus gastrique. The gastrique means, it's a French term,
04:50means caramelized sugar. And then we add this to our chicken jus to make it flavorful.
04:54In the final dish when we put the chicken on the plate and then we hit it with the citrus jus,
04:57this gastrique will go into jus, make the jus a little sweeter, tangier and acidic. The trick
05:03I like to do is to keep all the juices a little hot or warm so it doesn't seize the sugar. The chicken
05:11has a whole theme of like this citrus flavor which help us add sweetness and acidity to the dish. So
05:16adding sugar to the pan and just move around. Right now it's caramelizing. We throw our star anise in it
05:24so it gets some more flavor. So the sugar is melted. You see it starts to smoke. When it starts to smoke
05:28you know it starts to burn. And then you just add your hot juices. It's going to reduce and will have
05:34like a very citrusy flavor to it. So now we're going to give it like another 20-25 minutes to cook. While
05:40it's reducing I'm going to grate the zest. It's got three kinds of citrus. It's lime, lemon and oranges. So
05:47it's been 20 minutes now and like you see all the sugars from the citrus juice and the sugar start
05:52to like really caramelize again. And it's turned into this slow boil and now this is the time where
05:57it's ready to go. As I pull it off I'm going to add all this zest in here. Zest is going to enhance
06:02the more citrus flavor so it will be like more refreshing, more on your tongue. I'm just going to
06:06transfer this. As soon as it cools down it's going to set super thick. It's going to be like a honey.
06:12You're adding a spoonful of thick honey to your jus. So we're making the citrus jus right now. A jus
06:18is a French term for a stock. Basically all the bones which we took it out of the chicken
06:23was roasted and then boiled for like 24 hours with some mirepoix. Then we are reducing it to like
06:29the proper viscosity we need for the sauce and then we're going to add our citrus gastric to it.
06:34We're going to add like a couple of spoons to it. The viscosity is right there. It's beautiful and
06:39I think citrus jus is ready. Tastes sweet, tangy and meaty at the same time so it's pretty good.
06:46We're going to put it on the side until time we plate the chicken.
06:50All right so this is the most technical aspect of whole dish making the hot sauce. It has to be a
06:55perfect consistency. It has some perfect texture and the flavor. All right we're going to start with
06:59adding olive oil to our rondeau. Some onions, fennel, just for like that sweetness to the hot sauce.
07:07We don't really want too much color on it. You just like gently cook them. Then right away you add red
07:13peppers and while it's all like kind of sweating you add your orange. It has a piff on it so it just
07:18had some bitterness to it and then we're just like going to cook it for a minute. Once it starts steaming
07:24we add our orange juice into it and we just let it cook then from there. And we have to completely cook
07:29it to like all the liquid all the moisture is evaporated and we can puree it at that point. So our hot
07:35sauce is not like a sauce which is like you can just like pour over something. It's like it's a
07:40thick puree consistency. You need to be able to canal it so that's why you need to cook down the
07:44vegetable to a point where like there's no liquid left in it. The vegetables are cooked. They are like
07:49super soft. All the water and all the liquid is evaporated. It's like start to like get a little more
07:55caramelized now and then we're going to stop blending. All right so we're going to take a scoop of this
08:02vegetable add it to here. This is some fermented red peppers and now the fermented habaneros in it a
08:09little bit and a little bit of a juice in there too. A little bit of water so make sure we have
08:15enough liquid in it so it emulsifies it and sometimes because it's too much fat so it needs
08:20xanthan gum to bind it so it just like does work. It's magic and then once you start emulsifying we're
08:25going to add all the oil. It's looking good. It's looking good. I was going to about to taste it.
08:33It tastes really good. The consistency is really good too like as I wanted to. So now I'm going to
08:37transfer this into one of our service vessels and then once we're ready to finish chicken we're going
08:42to use that. All right. All right so now we're going to cook our chicken. It's a three-pot process.
08:49We're going to grill it. We're going to put them in the oven and then at the very last we're going to put
08:52in the salamander. So I'm going to start chicken with seasoning the chicken a little bit. When you
08:56season just make sure like you're covering the whole chicken. Give it like 30 seconds. The skin
09:00will absorb the salt. It will get even more drier. These are the touches which are very minor in a
09:06sense but they make a huge role in getting the skin crispy and keeping it crispy. So now we're going to
09:11like brush it with olive oil just because we don't want it to stick onto the grill. This grill's extremely
09:17hot. So what we do we just like go on the side of this. As a home cook you need to understand
09:22what are like the hotter points. Like I can put the chicken in right in the middle and it will be
09:26just charred in like 30 seconds and you don't want that again. And this is where rendering of the
09:32chicken skin happens right now. The caramelization will start here. We want to make sure it gets like
09:36a nice char. I can hear the sizzle on it. You know it's just like a nice sizzle. I know this skin's
09:41going to char a little bit. Can I just lift it a little bit and then I like to use the wing because
09:45I don't want to disturb the skin. You see the grill marks are like nice. You'll see like the skin
09:49start to form up and then when we put in the oven it won't shrink more than this. And now
09:54just go the other way around and then same thing over here all the wing. So this is what we want
10:00as a color. It's starting to get like nice golden on top over here already. See like the breast bone
10:07is still protecting the breast where like it's not getting cooked you know. Second part of process we're
10:11going to take this and put them in the oven. So we're going to go in the oven for 13 minutes and we're
10:16going to flip it again. So we're going to check the chicken then we're going to turn the chicken back.
10:19We're going to give them a turn. The back side of the oven is more hotter than the front side so this
10:25chicken needs more time. I think we're going to go back in for like four or five minutes.
10:30Our timer just went off. We're going to take our chicken, check it and then let it rest for another
10:3315 minutes. I think resting is the most important part of cooking because the muscles relaxes. All the
10:38juices go back into the muscles. So when you carve it it's like juicy and tender and fresh. And also like
10:43this is still cooking you know. It's not done yet so when you put it away it will still keep on
10:48cooking but gently. So now we're going to rest the chickens for 15 minutes at room temperature.
10:58Chicken's rested. We made the sauce. We made the hot sauce. We made the gastric. Now we're going to
11:02carve the chicken. You just like go right under the bone here for the carcass and then just from there
11:08you just like straight slice through it. The goal is to just keep as much meat as you can possible on
11:14the chicken and then from there just go around and you just take the cage off like that and your whole
11:20chicken is still intact. The breast is like 99% there so I'm up I'm going to put it on this little
11:25tray with some brown butter. The chicken which has been resting now will absorb that moisture also and
11:30become even more tender. And then from there right there under the salamander for like good two minutes.
11:36All right like you just want to get like a little more heat into it a little more crispiness and then
11:39from there it's ready to go. And you can see the chicken is like nice and roasted. You see how
11:46crispy the skin is. I don't know if you can hear it. All right so we are ready to carve the chicken.
11:52Chicken's cut in five pieces. So the way we cut it most of the pieces you will get like the dark and
11:56the white meat together so like you get both of the textures at the same time. From here we have our
12:01citrus juice. Good like nice two three spoons of that. Now we're going to dress our lettuce and jalapenos
12:09and radish. A little bit lemon. Five pieces. Five lettuce. I like working with Twiza it's like a little more
12:15precise and like more precision to me. So like we play this, this, this. Last thing is just the cilantro on it.
12:23There we were. And now to finish the chicken off is our crown shai classic hot sauce.
12:30And that's the crown shai chicken. It looks amazing you know. And then the idea was to also have the
12:35foot hanging up the plate. The way we want to do things a little like a little bold a little crazy.
12:40Obviously you're going to take a bite with like get like some salad together.
12:44Carve a piece off. A little bit of hot sauce on this.
12:47Tastes all the hard work I did this morning. It's so simple and it and it's so flavorful.
12:55It tastes like the nice crispy skin, the tender Thai meat, the breast meat and then just like the
13:01citrus marinated all over. At the end of the day this is like the roast chicken but roast chicken
13:06doesn't have to be just boring salt pepper chicken. It could be like acidic spicy more light and fresh
13:12just like this chicken.
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