How NYC’s Best Korean Fried Chicken is Made

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My name is Junghyun Park.

I'm the chef and owner of the Atoboy restaurant.

Today I'm going to show you

how we make the perfect Korean fried in our restaurant.

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[bell ringing]

Fried chicken is my signature dish.

People's favorite, for sure.

Perfect Korean fried chicken is crispy outside,

very thin crust, with moisture and a lot of flavor inside.

Looks very simple

but it's a lot of techniques and a lot of time to take.

But when you taste this fried chicken,

you never regret about your time.

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So first step of the today

is going to be we brine the chicken.

I recommend using the chicken thigh,

the boneless and skinless meat.

It has more flavor and different texture

compared to chicken breast.

So brining technique looks very simple.

We only using few ingredients to make the brine.

So we need the water.

Salt is key element of the brine, whisking well.

And the yondu.

It's a fermented vegetable flavor enhancer,

made with fermented soybean.

Similar with the soy sauce

but it has different complexity of the flavor.

You cannot find yondu in your grocery sauce,

fish sauce or the soy sauce as well.

And also garlic powder and onion powder.

Compared to just seasoning salt on the top of the chicken,

brine solution is absorbing to the protein of the meat,

evenly seasoning, making more moisture

inside of the protein after cooking as well.

Typically, we brine this one

about six hour to eight hour.

This is actually very important step for fried chickens.

After this brine, we're gonna marinate this chicken

with a different flavor.

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One of the main part

and then secret ingredient of our marinade

is fermented jalapeno.

Jalapeno is very spicy and green and sharp.

It brings a hint of the acid and sweetness,

and give it some extra layer of the fermentation as well.

If you don't have food processor,

you can just chop it really finely.

And we also adding garlic.

If you just only put some jalapeno

is dominating the jalapeno flavor,

garlic is helping about round of different flavors.

Some salt, a little bit of sugar.

So adding some fish sauce.

The sugar, the sweet is actually

is giving some other flavor to the batter.

So I'm going to blending this one into Robot Coupe.

This is mostly designed for the professional kitchen.

[blender whirring]

So try to evenly blend it really well.

See a little bit still chunky

of the jalapeno but it's evenly blended with the garlic.

And I'm going to ferment about seven days.

So I have a big jar of the fermented jalapeno.

You can see little bubble comes out,

it's during the fermentation process.

Yeah, smells like kimchi.

Next step is going to be extra marinade.

So using the fermented jalapeno,

and ginger, and garlic, and the pineapple.

So everything going into the Robot Coupe.

The pineapple is a key ingredient for this marinade.

Pineapple has the enzyme

to actually making tenderizing the meat.

So even after double cooking, double fry,

the meat themself is still very tender and moisture.

[blender whirring]

So chicken, we took it out from the brine,

and we are going to mix with this beautiful marinade.

So marinade is going to be about

10% of the weight of the chicken.

Mixing really well,

even coating with this beautiful marinade.

So brine is basic season,

and then this marinade

is going to be another layer of flavor.

So if you want beautiful, crispy,

and juicy, and flavorful chicken,

I think that this two step is very important.

Can sit this one about another four to six hours.

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Our batter is actually two step process.

We making the dry batter and the wet batter for the frying.

Korean frying mix, they contain the onion powder,

garlic powder, bit of the baking powder as well.

If you cannot find this one,

you can replacing with the AP flour.

One of the surprising ingredient

we are mixing with rice flour.

Doesn't have any gluten,

so it gives a more like delicate crunchiness.

So we mixing into the batter base.

Tapioca starch also gives another texture

to your batter as well, kind of sharpen textures.

And then xantham gum.

It's helping emulsify.

So when you're coating your ingredient

with this type of the batter,

the xantham gum is actually holding your batter

with your ingredient.

Can make it more crunchy and crispy,

but at the same time more sharp and clean.

So we making actually this dry batter,

and also it's going to be the base

for the wet batter as well.

It need to be like mixing really well.

It's spreading really evenly on your batter base.

So next step is we are going to be wet batters.

So we are going to add some little bit more salt,

and also black pepper into it,

and whisking well.

And we add water.

So texture we are looking for is,

you can see it's like still very fluid

but at the same time

it's almost like pancake kind of batter.

So now we have the two different batters,

so this is a dry batter and this is wet batter,

so we are ready for frying now.

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So the marinade chicken,

so you can put into the dry batter.

Usually in our restaurant, we can put like seven

or eight piece as a one portion.

Coating lightly and just using your hand,

dusting a little bit out.

Coating properly everywhere.

And I don't want to heavy flour on the top of it,

so just like very lightly coating with the dry batter.

So you can see it's like already making crust outside.

So we using this kind of tool

'cause it's more kind of sharpen on the corner,

so it's to control your pressure on the chicken.

So we covering up with this wet batter like properly.

So as you can see, it's like still dropping a little bit

but not too much because of the xantham.

It's like kind of holding the batter really well.

And carefully, you can put into your frying oil.

So if you drop it, it's going to be

stuck on your, like, the nest.

So I think batter to be kind of holding a little bit

until like they're making crunch outside,

and then just like let it go on the oil.

So we are gonna frying this one about two minute,

and as a first frying process.

So we are cooking with the canola oils,

very neutral flavor.

And then we heat up until like 350,

I think it's like perfect temperature.

So it's actually create the outside structure

of the frying food,

so it doesn't fully cook the chicken themselves,

but this kind of gives some structure of the frying.

So it has created like crunch texture a little bit.

So you have the water and starch inside your batter.

So starch actually cook in the hot oils,

so it's making crunch texture.

The water is keeping from the batter,

it's making the air pocket.

So the air pocket making your crunch part.

You need to be really well balanced

between about how much air pocket you're looking for

and then how much crust you're looking for.

Can see the chicken is actually inside of the batter,

and batter themselves is frying in the oil,

so making like beautiful crust.

Then after cooking about two minute in the oil,

so we take it out from the heat.

So we resting on the basket.

I don't want to like really overcook the chickens.

I want to be like more juicy and tender inside.

So we are deep frying one more time

to make a crust really crunchy

and having beautiful texture.

But I want to keep inside, it's just done cooking properly.

So we gonna fry another three minute in the fryer.

This very important step.

Because of the resting process

and the pre-fry process,

I think the meat themselves is like almost ready to go.

But I want to be looking for the texture

of the outside crunchiness,

it's like really comes up beautiful.

When your frying is properly done,

it's all the chicken's actually floating almost on the oil.

So you can see the actually texture.

And I'm also looking for the color

is like beautifully kind of golden brown,

rather than the pale white.

So you can tell how the texture

and then color by the eyes.

I think the most mistake that home cook easily making

is they're operating about amount of the oil themself.

They're worried about,

Oh, am I need to using this much oil to fry?

Big amount of oil is making the batter quality

because when you drop some ingredient into the oil,

the temperature oil is not dropped as much

as if using the small amount of oil.

As you can see, the color is almost ready.

You can see the golden brown,

and the batter themselves covering

all your chicken properly.

This is what we are looking for.

So you can put into the tray carefully.

Because here it's very hot

and it's contained a lot of the moisture inside

because of the chicken themselves.

So if you put on the like flat tray,

it might be the bottom part

is going to be a little bit soggy.

So I want to be air is circulating,

making the more crunchy part, even the base.

As you can see, it has like beautiful

outside texture of the crust.

It's actually, you can touch it.

It's like very crunchy.

Can see the air bubble inside,

which is making the other layer of the crunchiness.

So this is our beautiful Korean fried chicken,

made with the chicken thighs, the boneless.

You can just right away chew and crunch texture outside,

and the moisture inside.

Beautiful heat comes from the fermented jalapeno

and natural sweetness from the pineapple,

and the beautiful texture.

[chicken crunches] [upbeat music]

They're still like very like juicy

and very like moisture inside,

but you can feel the outside texture

it's like very crunchy.

But not too little kind of crunchy.

It's more kind of soften.

The crusts of the outside is still very crunchy,

but inside is like very juicy and moisture.

And we serving the two beautiful sauce.

The first one is a fermented peanut butter sauce.

Mixes peanut butter water some mirin,

rice vinegars with fermented jalapeno.

It's nutty and creamy,

and lot of flavor comes out.

So second sauce we serving is yangyummy sauce.

Tomato comes from the tomato can, ketchup,

gochujang, so fermented chili paste,

some salt and sugar.

Juice from the gingers, water,

minced garlic, corn syrup.

Heat it up a little bit on the stove.

It's more like heat and sweet,

and also lamentation flavors.

Going to dip in the peanut butter sauce.

[chicken crunches] [upbeat music]

Balanced in between the fermented jalapeno flavor

and also little bit of the rice vinegar and mirin,

so it gives some other layer of the flavor.

And actually it doesn't feel like too greasy

or too heavy with it.

Even with the frying food,

it take your mouth feel very like amazing flavor together.

The last bite, I'm going with a yangyummy sauce.

[chicken crunches] [upbeat music]

It's delicious.

So I think it's really representing

what Atoboy is looking for.

I think that we are looking

for keep the Korean flavor as a tradition,

so always involving about the different flavor.

Ato, A-T-O is an ancient Korean word.

It means gift.

So I want to bring some Korean culture.

I want to be shareable this kind of banchan culture

to our restaurant as a gift.

Of course the fried chicken's the best gift. [laughs]