Hot chicken done right

I know everyone's jizzin their jeans over "Nashville Hot Chicken," and there are some good spots, but more often than not, places that advertise it are just giving you chicken with heat and no flavor, and that's sad. Honestly, those places should be ashamed; there are some good chicken places in Nashville. Granted, they're no Gus's Fried Chicken, but hey, they do their thing.

Well, here's a fun way to do it. To get a nice heat kick, I started off by dredging my chicken in flour seasoned with a couple teaspoons of ground smoked ghost pepper. I don't know about you, but I fucking love ghost peppers.

I followed the ghost pepper flour up with some of my balsamic mayo, then some bread crumbs mixed with a little salt and a bit of shredded parmesan.

After that, it was just a matter of frying that shit up in some vegetable oil. Outside of the chicken, I sautéed up some veggies and steamed some couscous. It was a quick and simple meal. I had to cut the grass first. Sue me.

I did a little plating, though. Not quite fancy, but better than just eating it all out of the fucking pan, right? I scooped a bit of veggies into one corner, then drew a line across the middle of the plate with some parsley oil. Quick.

I laid the chicken onto the parsley oil line, then dropped some couscous on the other side. I had my pickled zucchini that I didn't put on my purple hasbrowns in the last post, so I dropped a few chunks onto the couscous, then devoured the shit out of everything.

The veggies were simple, and they were fine. The couscous was okay, but the pickled zucchini definitely kicked it up another notch. And the chicken? Fucking baller. Perfect amount of heat, and a hell of a lot of flavor.

Comments

I don't understand food

Part 1 the morning after, while eating a sausage, egg, and cheese everything bagel from Bergen Bagels Last night, I had the pleasure, privilege, and audacity to eat at a Brooklyn restaurant named Aska . I know it's cliche to refer to a fancy restaurant meal as a life-changing experience, but this was straight up paradigm-shattering. I've written before about food being a medium of communication, about how I strive to reduce food waste as much as I can, about sharing our cultures and stories with each other through the meals we create, but seeing how Chef Fredrik Berselius is able to do this at such an intricate, elegant, and elevated level is both humbling and inspiring. The experience started before the first bite. I walked into the 10 table restaurant, and they knew me by name. I was shown to my table (right in the middle of the place, looking directly into the open kitchen), and they even pulled my chair out for me and pushed it up under me. I was a little uncomfortable with...

Perspective

I used to drive a 1986 pickup truck that was a heap of trouble on wheels. Mind you, I learned to drive in 2002. That piece of shit loved to just, you know, die. In the middle of intersections. While turning onto side streets. While accelerating from a stop sign. While braking for a stop sign. While cranking. It just died whenever it felt like it. It had AM radio and hand crank windows. That's literally it. No FM, no AC or heat. There were seatbelts for 2 of the 3 seats. I fucking hated that truck. On the other hand, it was my truck. I drove it to church, to work, and to the library; that was as far as I was allowed to take it, and I took it all of those places. I remember the first time I got it to idle while parked. I remember singing "The Prayer" over its dying engine multiple times. I think my younger brother probably has some flashbacks of some of those moments. But, as old, beaten up, shitty, annoying, and objectively terrible as it was, it sure was nice to have it ...

Why not give a shit?

About a month ago, I cooked up a big pot of a miso vegan stew. It was a Sunday evening, so I knew I needed to cook enough for Sunday night dinner and Monday's lunch. A vendor was taking us out for dinner on Monday, so I needed enough to cover Tuesday's lunch, too. I had plans with a friend on Tuesday night, so I wouldn't have time to cook, so I needed enough for Tuesday dinner and Wednesday lunch, too, so I said, and I quote, "Fuck it. I'll just cook enough for the week." Unfortunately, as I packed away my leftovers that night, I realized that I cooked enough for a week and a half. Normally, that wouldn't be a huge issue, except that I was leaving town Friday morning and wouldn't be back until Monday evening and did not have room in my freezer to store more than a bowl. Luckily, I was able to pawn a few bowls off on coworkers, so it all worked out alright. However, when I told this story to someone close to me, they said I should think about donating t...

ODG Eats

Search This Blog