Cookbook Hero

My first job was at a place called Isaly’s. Isaly’s was a bit of an anachronism. It was a weird hybrid of diner, ice cream shop, and convenience store. It was the sort of place where you could get a hamburger, a shake, and a dust-covered pack of some shaving cream brand that went off the market five years ago.

I got the job when I was 13. I’d met a friend there after school one day, and decided on a lark to go in and ask if they needed any help. I told the owner, Tom, that I was 14 and got the job. A couple days later my dad let it slip that I had lied about my age, but it turned out Tom had done the exact same thing when he was 13 so I think he actually liked me more because of it.

The location I worked at was one of the last remaining of a large Midwest chain that had been very popular in the 1950’s and had mostly gone out of business a couple decades after that. The few left were independently-owned units that had been purchased from the company as it became insolvent and passed down from owner to owner. Tom had worked there until he bought it from someone, and I believe still owns it today, though it’s now in a different location. Other than the couple Isaly’s diners still open, the only surviving vestiges of their empire are the Klondike Bar (now owned by Unilever) and some prepackaged meats and ice creams you can find in Pennsylvania.

Like a lot of people in food service I got my start washing dishes and cleaning floors. Eventually as it became obvious that I was unusually reliable for a teenager my responsibilities grew. I started working the short order grill, which mainly meant throwing a frozen burger or chicken breast on it until it was nearly burnt, slapping it on a bun, and smothering it in off-brand mayonnaise that came out of a two gallon jar. I made fries, again from frozen, and on the weekends (the only time I was able to work mornings) eggs and pancakes too.

But where Isaly’s really made its money (well, other than cigarettes) was fried chicken. Weekends were wall-to-wall fried chicken dinners. I haven’t been in there in about 15 years, but I would be surprised if they’re not still doing a brisk business on Sundays. People in the area would order chicken and jojos and take them home to feed the families.

The chicken was fried in two huge pressure cookers. You’d chop up the jojos by hand using a little tool that was basically a handle attached to a dull, wavy blade. Then you’d bread them and the chicken in a large bin similar to the one you might see a busboy collect dishes in and toss them in the hot oil. Seal the lid and in a few minutes you were ready to go. On busy days both fryers would be humming simultaneously with two to three orders each for hours.

I hated every minute of frying chicken. For one, unlike waiting tables there were no tips involved since the orders were mostly take out. If you were cooking the short order grill you were usually also waiting on the people you were cooking for, so at least there was a little cash in it.

For another, you were constantly getting burned. Anyone who has ever fried anything knows what happens when you drop cold meat into hot oil. With the volume we did there was no time to use tongs and put the pieces in one-by-one. You simply got as close to the oil as you dared before dropping them, four or five at a time, and yanked your hand away as fast as possible. You only got burned badly if you were careless, otherwise you would just get a projectile drop of hot oil on your arm here and there. It was like being stung by a bee over and over all day long.

Worst of all, though, was the cleanup at the end of the night. Our fryers were ancient. You had to get the oil out of them while it was still hot. This wasn’t too bad if you had the foresight to turn them off about an hour before closing. But if you forgot, or if it was a busy enough night that someone might order fried chicken at 8 p.m. and you had to leave them on until right before closing, it was brutal.

From what I’ve heard the good fryers you’d find at somewhere like KFC these days are plumbed straight into the grease trap. Not so with the pressure fryers of old. You had a corroded, disgusting pipe with a valve that required a special key to open. The entire inside of the unit was metal and extremely hot. Touch anything and you were getting a blister. If the pipe got clogged up a bit the oil would spurt out dangerously. If everything went well you collected about 5 gallons of hot oil in a 5 gallon metal stock pot which quickly got to be almost as hot as the oil. You then had to carry the heavy, overflowing bucket of  burning napalm to the maggot-infested grease trap and dump it in a slot that wasn’t nearly large enough, requiring you to tip it very carefully and pour slowly. If you’re 14 and you can manage this without injury you’re a better man than me. It wasn’t a question of whether or not the process would be painful, it was just how painful.

The chicken was tasty though. It was pretty much the only main course we served that was thawed before we cooked it. The jojos were even made from fresh potatoes. Together they might be the only meal we had that I wouldn’t find downright offensive if asked to eat now. 

So when I started leafing through Ad Hoc at Home months ago and saw a recipe for Buttermilk Fried Chicken it really took me back. Thankfully I’ve got a bit more user-friendly of a setup than the rust buckets I used back in the day, so I knew I had a pretty good chance of escaping burn-free.

I have a King Kooker that I love. I bought it for my dad as a gift once but he never used it and ended up just passing it back to me. I’ve used it many times since then. I’ve fried a couple Thanksgiving turkeys. I use it for making beer, since bringing a few gallons to a boil on my wimpy electric stove would otherwise take hours. I even did a crab boil in it a few weeks back.

A lot of people are afraid of turkey fryers, but most of the horror stories come from people being stupid. You definitely need to exercise a good deal of caution when frying meat in hot oil. If you dig into most of the incidents you find that some donkey left one unattended on his wooden patio and tragedy ensued. But if you’re not an idiot, there’s no better or easier way to fry something, and there’s no tastier way to fry poultry than in peanut oil.

My wife and I were having our niece and nephew over for the night on Saturday, and the weather is finally nice enough for the King Kooker, so I decided it would be a perfect time to try out the fried chicken. I also made some Pepperonata Rustica for the adults.

The cooking started with the Pepperonata Rustica. It uses soffrito, which takes about 5 hours to cook. The soffrito was time consuming but not particularly difficult. You start by simmering some onions in olive oil for 2.5 hours.

Then you add in some quick tomato puree, made by rubbing seeded plum tomatoes on a box grater.

Then cook for a couple more hours. At the end you add in the garlic.

When the soffrito is done you’re ready to move onto the Pepperonata. The peppers are a mix of bell peppers (red and yellow are recommended, but the yellow ones at the market looked pretty shabby so I went with green) and piquillo. The bell peppers need to be roasted and peeled. Then they all three are torn by hand, added to the sofrito with some chicken stock, seasoned with a little salt and some piment d’esplette, and simmered for about a half hour.

After starting the onions I worked on brining the chicken. This I foolishly did indoors. I probably could have saved a half hour by heating the brine in the King Kooker as well. I had to boil 2 gallons of salt, water, honey, lemons, garlic, parsley, thyme and bay leaves. It smelled so good I debated trying it out as a soup.

I then put the stock pot in my standup freezer to get it cool enough to put the chicken in. That unfortunately took about 2.5 hours, leaving me only about 2.5 more hours of brining time before the chicken had to be removed. Next time I’ll be sure to make the brine the night before.

When the soffrito was nearly done simmering I started the oil for the chicken. I like to start my oil well in advance so I can get a feel for exactly how far I need to jack up the dial to maintain the exact temperature I want. Once I’ve marked the position on the dial I turn it up just a little bit. I like to get the oil about 20 degrees hotter than the desired temperature since it will drop rapidly once the meat hits it. I keep it there until ready to cook and then drop in the meat, which lowers the oil to below the cooking temperature. I then jack up the heat until the oil heats up top where I want it (in this case 320) and then set the dial to just apst the marked position. Starting in advance also gives you time to pull the pot off the oil to let it cool down if you overshoot your temperature by a little bit.

While the oil was starting to heat I dipped back in to get the sofrito simmering and the coating ready. The coating is a mixture of flour, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, cayenne, salt, and pepper. Chef Keller recommends splitting the mixture into two bowls. You dip the chicken in one bowl, dip it in buttermilk, then dip it in the second bowl. My wife did most of the breading while I tended the oil.

After that I simply fried the meat together. Chef Keller has some recommendations for frying the pieces in batches if you’re using a small indoor fryer, but the King Kooker can easily accommodate two birds at once. I just added the dark meat first, waited a few minutes, then added the breasts, waited another minute, then added the thighs. I jiggled the basket a little in the oil to help the chicken to cook evenly. Then I just removed the chicken and let it cool and crisp up on a rack for a few minutes.

The results? The adults liked the Pepperonata Rustica. My niece, Danielle, said she liked it but definitely didn’t go back for seconds, and my nephew just ate two ears of corn instead. I didn’t expect either of the kids would love it which is why we made the corn on the cob.

Everyone loved the chicken though. Danielle said it was the best fried chicken she’s ever had.

Both recipes were definite winners. The Pepperonata Rustica takes some planning, since you have to start it off 6 hours early if you don’t have some soffrito laying around, but it’s very easy. The chicken takes even more planning, though you could skip the brine in a pinch.

Next time I think I’ll make some extra breading and cut up some jojos to go along with the chicken.  I just need to get one of those handles with a wavy blade.

I know it’s been a week since the last update, but at least this one’s a twofer. I decided I wanted to try braising, which is a technique that’s largely new to me (I know, what a rookie) and Ad Hoc at Home had a recipe for Crispy Braised Chicken Thighs with Olives, Lemon and Fennel that looked pretty tasty.

I also found that a market near my office sold broccoli rabe. You can tell they don’t sell much of it since the cashier (who I’ve seen there for over a year now) had never even heard of rapini before. But they had it and it didn’t look too shabby so I decided to make it as a side dish.

I started off by getting the salted water for blanching the rapini started because my stove sucks and bringing that much water to a boil takes too long. Chef Keller recommends blanching vegetables in a large pot so that the water doesn’t lose the boil when you add the vegetables, so I used about 4 gallons. In the summer I typically use my King Kooker for things like crab boils, making beer, or whatever else requires more than a couple gallons of water to boil, but for now I’m forced to do it indoors. Then I started on the chicken. You begin by season the thighs with salt and sautéing them for a few minutes to brown the skin side.

You then briefly sauté the inside and set on a rack to wait.

Next you lower the heat and sauté onion, then garlic, then fennel, and cook until the fennel is crisp-tender.

Then pour in some white wine (I used a dry chardonnay I had from Chateau St. Jean) and simmer for a couple minutes to burn off the alcohol. Then stir in olives, pepper flakes, bay leaves, lemon zest, thyme, and some chicken stock. Bring to a simmer and cook until the fennel is tender and season with salt.

After that you return the chicken to the pan and let it come back to a simmer. Drop it in the oven for ~20 minutes at 375° until cooked through. (I prodded mine with the Thermapen at 18 minutes and it was exactly ready to go). Then you finish it in the broiler for a couple minutes to brown.

Plate and garnish with parsley.

While the chicken was in the oven I cooked the trimmed broccoli rabe.

First I blanched it in the boiling water for a few minutes until it was “tender but slightly resistant to the tooth”. I’m not sure I got the texture just right but I decided to err on the side of undercooked since I was following up with a sauté and didn’t want the end result to be mushy.

Then I shocked the greens (immerse in ice water to reduce carryover cooking) and set to dry on paper towels.

Then I sautéed the garlic for 1 minute until lightly browned and crisp. I added a pinch of red pepper flakes, and the rapini and cook for a couple minutes to heat through. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Overall it was quite delicious. I don’t eat too many sautéed greens so that was a rare and tasty treat. The chicken was quite perfect. Chef Keller says you could easily replace the Mediterranean seasonings with any theme and it would work, though I’m not really sure what else I’d try. My thoughts always initially go to Cajun food, but I’m not sure replacing the fennel with rice and the olives with crawfish would have the desired effect.

This was yet another incredibly easy dish that I plan to make more often. The point of this blog isn’t just to do the easy ones (though it’s been largely working out that way lately) so I promise I’ll get into some more taxing stuff soon. I might make something crazy this weekend if I get a few hours to spare.