How NYC’s Best Grilled Chicken is Made (Michelin Star)

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I am Jassimran Singh.

I'm the executive chef of Crown Shy.

Today we will be doing the best roast chicken.

It's our number one dish to be honest.

People actually come to Crown Shy for this chicken.

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Crown Shy neighborhood restaurant we opened in 2019.

We didn't want it to feel like it's so high end.

So first thing we wanted to work is citrus marinated

and habanero brined chicken, which is really,

really delicious, spicy, tangy and connects with people.

A key marker for a roast chicken is the perfect crispy skin

and a real moist meat.

It is hard to achieve but it's not not possible

and you can definitely do it at home.

Let me show you how.

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Here's the chicken, which is Hudson Valley chicken.

It's a 40 day old chicken and it's about like three

and a half pounds but we get it with a head and a feet on.

We keep the feet on for presentation

so when we get your whole chicken we can use the other

bones to make chicken stock.

And then chicken jus that turns into like

our sauce for the chicken.

So we wanted to use the whole animal.

Then I'm just gonna like go through the through the head.

We don't do anything with that.

The smaller part of arm, this goes for the chicken jus

and then we flip the chicken upside down

and make the cut here at the back,

just try to save all the skin, right?

That's like the most important thing.

If you have a tear when you cook it

'cause the chicken will expand,

it will just rupture the whole thing.

And you're trying to keep as much skin as possible

because that will help us later

keep the chicken, the skin crispy.

We keep the breast bones intact

to protect it from getting dry

'cause it's a more leaner muscle.

So that's like a cushion for us.

And from now we'll just cut the chicken in half.

You split it in half but like you gotta be careful

with the skin and you're just making a perfect incision.

So when you flip the chicken,

the skin is fully, fully intact.

So when you cook it, obviously it's gonna shrink.

But now we have a extra piece of skin,

it will come back perfectly right around the edge

of the chicken breast and in the legs.

I'm de-boning the the thigh meat and then the legs, thighs

and the legs have more fat

but they need longer cooking time than the breast.

So just to even out the process, we need

to have no bones in the thigh and the leg.

You gotta feel where the bones are

and then you just like scrape a little bit

so you can see actual physical bone

and then from there you can just slide your knife

around it to clear it out.

Always it will be really hard for people at home.

This is like not the most easiest process

but it's a little tedious because we want

to keep the foot intact and that's your half chicken,

breast bones intact deboned thigh, deboned leg.

So these chickens are broken down and ready to marinate.

So we're gonna marinate it for like 24 hours.

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So this marinate is basically a citrus brine which is

made of citrus juice.

We just blending it all together then putting in

a Lexan and then putting chickens in it.

We're gonna go in batches.

Marinating chicken is really important.

If you want to put any seasoning into it, you have

to marinate chicken and you have

to give it at least six hours

and make sure like your marinate

or your brine is actually a little aggressively seasoned

'cause it's not gonna translate a 100%.

So now once we have the liquid you can start

throwing your salt in there.

People often like scared

that they're gonna season their chicken with salt.

I think people need to understand it takes

a lot of salt to over season the chicken.

It also helps break down the chicken a little more.

And when you cook a chicken at home,

sometimes the chicken's dry.

By marinating you can also avoid that.

We are gonna do another round.

If you're do it at home, try to do it a batch.

It just like breaks down the chilies really well.

We blend it completely

'cause we want as spicy as it could be.

The more seeds are blended, the more spicier they are.

And now we're gonna add all our juices into it.

Grapefruit juice, lemon juice, lime juice, ginger juice,

mix the salt, mix all the juices together.

So our marinade's ready

and we are gonna just transfer our chickens into it

and it's gonna live here in the marinade for 24 hours.

Anything past that because it has a lot of acid in it,

it start cooking the chicken.

You'll label this.

So they are chicken out of the marinade,

chickens are marinating

and there's a marinade for other chickens to come in.

So we're gonna just wash these

chickens out of the marinade now.

So I have some chickens over here which are marinated

yesterday, 24 hours ago.

We're gonna just rinse 'em

and we're gonna take 'em upstairs with us.

You can keep the marinade on.

For us, we need to take it off because it will

eventually start burning.

The spices will burn,

the chili will burn before like chicken will be cooked.

So that's why we wash it off.

And then from there we dry it for like a couple of hours.

We want the skin to be dry

because if there's any moisture, it won't get that crispy.

Pat around the skin.

We also only rinse the skin.

So like in the other part you can see the chilies

and everything is still in there.

From here we're gonna transfer back into the walk-in

and let it dry for four hours.

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So we're gonna make the citrus gastrique.

A gastrique means it's a French term,

means caramelized sugar.

And then we add this to our chicken jus

to make it flavorful.

In the final dish, when we put the chicken on the plate

and then we hit it with the citrus jus,

this gastrique will go into jus,

make the jus a little sweeter tan gear and an acidic.

The trick I like to do is

to keep all the juices little hot

or warm so it doesn't seed the sugar.

The chicken has a whole theme

of like this citrus flavor which help us add sweetness

and acidity to the dish.

So adding sugar to the pan and just move around.

Right now it's caramelizing.

We throw our star anise in it so it get some more flavor.

So the sugar is melted.

You see start to smoke.

When it start to smoke, you know it start to burn

and then you just add your hot juices, it's gonna reduce

and we'll have like a very citrusy flavor to it.

So now we're gonna give it like

another 20, 25 minutes to cook.

While it's reducing, I'm gonna grade these zest.

It's got three kind of citrus.

It's lime, lemon and oranges.

So it's been 20 minutes now

and like you see all the sugars from the citrus juice

and the sugars start to like really caramelize again

and it's turned into this slow boil.

And now this is the time where it's ready to go.

As I pull it off I'm gonna add all this zest in here.

Zest, we're gonna enhance the more citrus flavor

so it will be like more refreshing, more on your tongue.

I'm just gonna transfer this.

As soon as it cools down, it's gonna set super thick.

It's gonna be like a honey.

You are adding a spoonful of thick honey to your jus.

So we're making the citrus jus right now.

A jus is a French tone for a stock.

Basically all the bones which we took it out

of the chicken was roasted

and then boiled for like 24 hours with some mirepoix.

And then we are reducing it to like the proper viscosity

we need for the sauce.

And then we are gonna add our citrus gastrique to it.

We're gonna add like a couple of spoons to it.

The viscosity is right there.

It's beautiful and I think citrus jus is ready.

Tastes sweet, tangy and meaty at the same time.

So it's, it's pretty good.

We are gonna put it on the side

until time we plate the chicken.

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Alright, so this is the most technical aspect

of whole dish, making the hot sauce

'cause it has to be a perfect consistency,

has to be perfect texture and the flavor.

Alright we're gonna start with adding olive

oil to our rondo.

Some onions, fennel just for like

that sweetness to the hot sauce.

We don't really want too much color on it,

you just like gently cook them.

Then right away you add red peppers

and while it's all like kind of sweating,

you add your orange, it has a pith on it

so just add some bitterness to it

and then we're just like gonna cook it for a minute.

Once it starts steaming, we add our orange juice into it

and we just let it cook then from there

and we have to completely cook it to like all the liquid,

all the moisture is evaporated

and we can puree at that point.

So our hot sauce is not like a sauce which is like you can

just like pour over something.

It's like it's a thick puree consistency.

You need to be able to canal it.

So that's why you need to cook down the vegetable to a point

where like there's no liquid left in it.

The vegetables are cooked, they're like super soft,

all the water and all the liquid is evaporated.

It's like starting to like get a little more caramelized now

and then we are gonna start blending.

Alright so we're gonna take a scoop of this vegetable,

add it to here.

This is some fermented red peppers

and now the fermented habaneros in it, a little bit

and a little bit of a juice in there too.

A little bit of water.

So make sure we have enough liquid in it so it emulsifies it

and sometime because it's too much fat

so it needs Xantham gum to bind it.

So it just like does work, it's magic.

And then once we start it emulsifying

we're gonna add olive oil.

It's looking good, it's looking good.

I was gonna, about to taste it.

It tastes really good.

The consistency is really good too, like as I wanted to.

And so now I'm gonna transfer this into one

of our service vessels.

And then once we ready to finish chicken, we gonna use that.

All right?

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All right, so now we're gonna cook our chicken.

It's a three pot process.

We're gonna grill it, we're gonna put 'em in the oven.

And then at the very last we're

gonna put it in the salamander.

So I'm gonna start chicken

with seasoning the chicken a little bit.

When you season, just make sure like you're

covering the whole chicken.

Give it like 30 seconds.

The skin will absorb the salt, it will get even more drier.

These are the touches which are very minor in a sense,

but they make a huge role in getting the skin

crispy and and keeping it crispy.

So now we're gonna like brush it with olive oil just

because we don't want it to stick onto the grill.

This grill's extremely hot.

So what we do, we just like go on the side of this.

As a home cook, you need to understand

what are like the hotter points.

Like I can put the chicken in right in the middle

and we'll be just charred in like 30 seconds

and you don't want that.

Again.

And this is where rendering

of the chicken skin happens right now.

The caramelization will start here.

We want to make sure it gets like a nice char.

I can hear the sizzle on it,

you know it's just like a nice sizzle.

I know this skin's got a char a little

bit and I just lift it a little bit.

And then I like to use the wing

because I don't wanna disturb the skin.

You see the grill marks are like nice.

You'll see like the skin start to form up

and then when we put in the oven it won't

shrink more than this.

And now just go the other way around.

And then same thing over here, all the wing.

So this is what we want as a color.

It start to get like nice golden on top over here already.

See like the breast bone is still protecting the breast

where like it's not getting cooked.

You know?

Second part of process,

we're gonna take this and put 'em in the oven.

So we're gonna go in the oven

for 13 minutes and we're gonna flip it again.

So we're gonna check the chickens

and we're gonna turn the chicken back.

But we are gonna give 'em a turn.

And the back side of the oven is more

hotter than the front side.

So this chicken needs more time.

So I think we're gonna go back in for like another

four or five minutes.

Our timer just went off, we're gonna take out our chicken,

check it and then let it rest for another 15 minutes.

I think resting is the most important part of cooking

'cause the muscles relaxes,

all the juices go back into the muscles.

So when you carve it, it's like juicy

and tender and fresh.

And also like this is still cooking, you know?

It's not done yet.

So when you put it away,

it will still keep on cooking but gently.

So now we're gonna rest the chickens

for 15 minutes at room temperature.

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Chicken's rested, we made the sauce,

we made the hot sauce, we made the gastrique.

Now we're gonna carve the chicken.

You just like go right under the bone here for the carcass

and then just from there you just like straight

slice through it.

The goal is to just keep as much meat

as you can possible on the chicken.

And then from there just go around

and you just take the cage off like that

and your whole chicken is still intact.

The breast is like 99% there.

So I'm up,

I'm gonna put it on the chilling tray

with some brown butter.

The chicken which has been rested now will absorb

that moisture also and become even more tender.

And then from there, right there under the salamander

for like good two minutes.

All right, so like you just wanna get like a little more

heat into it, a little more crispiness

and then from there it's ready to go.

And you can see the chicken's like nice and roasted.

You see how crispy the skin is? I dunno if you can hear it.

Ha ha ha.

Alright, so we are ready to carve the chicken.

Chicken's cut in five pieces.

So the way we cut it, most of the pieces you will

get like the dark and the white meat together.

So like you get both of the textures at the same time.

From here we have our citrus jus, good, like nice two,

three spoons of that.

Now we're gonna dress our lettuce and jalapenos

and radish a little bit lemon, five pieces, five lettuce.

I like working with Tweezers,

it's like a little more precise

and like more precision to me.

So like we plate this, this, this.

Last thing is just the cilantro on it everywhere.

And now to finish the chicken off is our Crown Shy

Classic Hot Sauce.

And that's the Crown Shy Chicken.

It looks amazing, you know.

And then the idea will

to also have with the foot hanging off

the plate, the way we wanna do things,

a little like a little bowl, a little crazy.

Obviously you gotta take a bite with like get like some

salad together, carve a piece off.

Little bit of hot sauce on this.

Taste all the hard work I did this morning, huh?

It's so simple and it, and it's so flavorful.

It tastes like the nice crispy skin,

the tender thigh meat or breast meat.

And then just like the citrus marinade all over.

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At the end of the day, this is like a roast chicken,

but roast chicken doesn't have to be just

boring, salt pepper chicken.

It could be like acidic, spicy, more light and fresh.

Just like this chicken.

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