William Dissen Shares His Secret To Delicious Fried Chicken - Exclusive
Fried chicken is one of those foods that, too often, we take for granted, but just imagine a world without it. While the dish can be a comfort on its own, fried chicken can be a base for a great sandwich, salad, wrap, or the anchoring entree of a fabulous meal. It's also a food that many people see as basic and assume is easy to prepare, but in fact, it's much easier to get it wrong than right. Enter as Exhibit A any home-cooked fried chicken you have ever eaten (or prepared yourself) where the breading falls apart and the meat is tough and gamey.
To learn the secret to making truly delicious fried chicken, we asked the chef and owner of Billy D's Fried Chicken, William Dissen, for a few tips. During an exclusive interview with Mashed, Dissen explained: "Fresh is best. You always want to source locally [and] make sure you know what the poultry is being fed. As for technique, we do a quick brine on ours. We actually do a pickle brine. So it's very quick, like 20, 30 minutes. And then let it sit in a refrigerator uncovered for a minimum of six hours, if not overnight." Dissen explained that the chicken then forms what is called a pellicle and, "the outside the chicken gets a little sticky, and so at that point, when you go to dredge it to deep fry it, that breading sticks on. One of my biggest pet peeves when eating fried chicken is when you cut into it and the breading just falls off."
Chef William Dissen on why fresh and local is always better
For chef William Dissen, the whole "farm-to-table" thing isn't just some buzzword or cliché. Whether he is sourcing poultry for the fried chicken he'll make at Billy D's or foraging for wild ramps he'll use to make a pesto sauce for dishes at his restaurant The Marketplace, he is a staunch believer that the best foods are always those you can find in season and nearby.
To make the best foods possible, the chef said: "I definitely think [it's about] eating more locally and more seasonally. I always make the cliche analogy of: Would you rather eat a tomato in June or January? I think if you can make that idea about how to eat, your food is one going to taste better." Dissen added, "You're going to have more vitamins and nutrients in the food you eat, because it is fresher, rather than having something that's picked under-ripe and shipped across the world in off-season time."
You can watch new episodes of "Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted" air on Sundays on National Geographic. To catch more delicious recipes, follow chef William Dissen on Instagram.